“We live a day at a time but also from moment to moment. When we stop living in the here and now, our problems become magnified unreasonably. Patience isn’t a strongpoint with us. That’s why we need our slogans and our N.A. friends to remind us to live the program just for today.”Basic Text pg. 96Living just for the moment isn’t quite as easy for me as it had originally sounded. I was relieved to hear that it was ok to do that but had trouble actually putting it into practice. I wanted to focus on how bad I had treated others in the past, or what I would be doing 10 years from now with my life. Where I would be or what I would be doing. While it’s important for me to have goals, I cannot forget about today. I must do whatever is necessary to stay clean and be ok with me. “Let the past be the past” I heard others say. I did not get that. I couldn’t stop feeling that regret for my past actions. Then someone asked me “Well, do you think HP has forgiven you?” And upon me answering yes they replied “Well then who the h@#* are you to not forgive yourself. That just opened up a whole new way of thinking when I realized that though I had the right to continue feeling the way I felt, I was really doing others an injustice by staying in the guilt of the past.There are times when my disease still tries to take me back into that guilt, but it’s then that I must press forward, continuing that contact with HP and focusing on what I’m doing today for me, my HP, and the ones that I am accountable to.
Living in the here and now has been one of the most powerful tools that I ever received from the program of Narcotics Anonymous. Doing so simplifies my daily life, that otherwise I tend to complicate and get stressed out in the process over small errands... Most mornings when I wake up, it is very easy for me to get overwhelmed by a dozen things that I need to do, and I very easily develop a black-and-white thought pattern as a result, that it's either everything done perfectly or if one of the chores go wrong, then all is lost for the day... Living in the present moment has helped me to focus on just one next thing at hand, and do just that... till I have done it, I don't need to think of the other dozen things that need to be done...
In fact, that's how my recovery started, one clean hour... hour by hour, I used to postpone my urge to use, by telling myself, from this moment till the next one hour, I won't use... Also, living in the moment saves me from dwelling in the past or dreading the future, on either of which I'm powerless over... All I have is this moment...
Surrendering to the magic of the moment also lets me be fully present at all levels, and to observe what is transpiring in this moment completely, without being blocked by thoughts of what I'm upto next... Doing so has exposed me to those parts of my daily life that I wouldn't otherwise have noticed... like the dog who always comes running behind my bike whenever I enter my street, the different shades of color that the flowers on the tree outside my bedroom window take at different times, the eagle's flight above me, the smile on a child's face that I encounter while passing thru the school nearby my place, the presence of my Higher Power when I breath his love, the significance of the precious moments that I get to spend with my loved ones and the realization of how I end up wasting those moments not expressing all that I wish I can tell them... I can go on and on... Thank you for provoking my thoughts and feelings by presenting this topic... Hugs and Love.
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
