The Power Of Now: 3 Takeaways
"Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now."
--Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle describes the first part of his life as being consumed by anxiety and depression, including suicidal ideation. At 29 years old he had a spiritual awaking where he was told to "resist nothing." From that point forward, he was transformed. He changed his name from Ulrich to Eckhart and then he "spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.” He was a changed man which led many to come to him for guidance. Ultimately he wrote his first book, The Power of Now, in 1997 and, with Oprah's help, it became a New York Times Best Seller.
Not surprisingly given the title alone, the book enters a deep realm of the abstract. Tolle's experience with teaching his "concepts" for years prior to this book allows him, however, to weave in the FAQs and relate the depth of mindfulness to the reality of the average person. It's a book that allows you to immediately immerse yourself into the lesson.
While I've been practicing meditation and mindfulness for years, I'm very, very, (very?) far from good at either. A book like this reminds me of both the importance of these practices and gives some great takeaways to make me just a bit less far away from good.
The Power Of Now Takeaways
Watching The Thinker
To be mindful you need to stop doing what our minds are constantly doing, thinking about the past and the future. As Tolle puts it,
“Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.”
One technique to use is what he calls, "watching the thinker". In order to separate your true self from the thoughts of the mind, you would use this technique to watch your thoughts. Think "I wonder what my next thought will be". After a moment of contemplation, you'll probably immediately become mindful. Once you notice your thought you are immediately separated from it. It's easy to do it for a moment but holding on to that tends to be difficult because of what Tolle describes as the hum of the thoughts running in our mind. Practice this and hold on to it as long as you can. Then start again.
I take this concept a step further and step back to watch the think I do this not only in my thoughts but in my behaviors. I've found this to be a great tool to allow separation and a perspective absent of immersion that often accompanies emotions of the sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, or freeze) such as anxiety, fear, and anger. Being an "outsider" in this way works in two (theorized) ways.
First, it allows you to get a more holistic version of the response to the system,
Second, it literally forces you to activate your prefrontal cortex (the outer brain) which shuttles blood away from the overactive amygdala (the inner, reptilian brain).
2. How To Be In The Now
Tolle writes, "I would say about 80 to 90% of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless but because of its dysfunctional and negative nature much of it is also harmful." I have no idea how accurate this is but I hope it's way off.
The cure for this, as you can guess, is to bring this thinking back to the current moment. Once you're in that moment you observe the emotion and observe the thought. You make this a habit by continually checking in with yourself and asking yourself, "What's going on inside me at this moment?" The key is to notice it without judging it. When you do this enough you've achieved enlightenment which he describes as "rising above thought."
Through this enlightenment, or even just frequent periods of mindfulness, you become happier. He writes,
"Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, wheres joy arises within you. The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain......All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no 'I' except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted."
So how do you know if what you're doing is worthwhile and good? "Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle."
3. The Pain-Body & The Way To Pain
Tolle describes the "pain-body" as a mass of negative energy that can occupy your body and mind. This pain feeds on negative energy but goes hungry when positive energy or joy is around. Often time, I believe, this pain is ruminating thoughts that manifest as anxiety. Maybe this pain is why people continually look for negativity and anxiety. If they experience one anxious moment and then it resolves then it's no longer anxiety-provoking but that gap is immediately filled with the next anxious thought. This is rumination. This rumination gave us an evolutionary advantage for many years and the person who constantly feared the rattlesnake passed their genes on when the laid-back person did not. This was beneficial back in the day but much less so nowadays.
Anxiety is just one form of pain. Pain has many faces but the process of "fixing it" is the same. He writes,
"Shouldn't you learn to live with pain in sorrow instead of avoiding it? The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain you create now is some form of resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the resistance to the present moment. The more you identify with your mind, the more you suffer. The more you can honor and accept the now, the more you're free of pain or suffering and free of the ego and mind."
This is his process for honoring and accepting the pain (numbers are mine):
“1. Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body.
2. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it.
3. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you.
4. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher.
This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”
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