Moment to Moment
by Rachel Perry
There was a moment when I was 18 when I first discovered the power of the present moment. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress after having been raped by my boyfriend several months prior and couldn’t seem to escape the blast from panic attacks and intense fear of something bad happening again. A counsellor at the sexual abuse crisis centre taught me a few strategies to “become present.” She told me about feeling the ground beneath the soles of my feet. She told me about breathing deeply and reassuring myself that the traumatic moment was in the past and I am safe now. These strategies reminded me of the relaxing way I had felt when doing pre-show meditations with my drama class 3 years prior, in which we would listen to relaxing music (Pachelbel’s Canon) and visualize white light surrounding us and all darkness and stress leaving us.
The powerful moment which I remember when I was 18 was in a bathroom. I had just had a panic attack that was so severe it had me laying on the ground feeling paralyzed as though I were pinned by an elephant and suffocating. But the idea came to my mind “You can become “grounded” in the present moment and you can feel safe now.” So I started breathing deeply. I started taking notice of my surroundings. I slowly could sit up. I sat on the edge of the tub and looked at my feet, wiggled them around in my socks. “I am safe,” I told myself. And I filled up with a gratitude of the present moment which was safe. And I started to feel free from the past. I calmed myself down and that was when I had the powerful realization that to be completely free from the past I need to be completely aware of the present. And a whole world opened up for me.
It took me several years to break free from the addictive cycle of using alcohol to numb the pain. But by the time I was 21 I was experiencing the victory of my attentive focus to living in the moment. I enrolled in Journalism, got my own apartment, and was dedicating all my free time to reading the Sacred Bahá’í texts and serving and volunteering in the community.
Becoming Present became the most important door to me to escape every trial, ordeal, and tribulation that I encountered after that. And now, more than a decade later, I have found there are even more divine bounties and gifts available in the present moment. Books such as “The Power of Now” have made this mantra mainstream and have given us a glimpse into the possibilities available to the seeker who desires to live deeply, and live truly.
Living in the moment, going with the flow, “being aware” is a very important step on the journey to our inner selves. Awareness is the key – but we need not to be aware of the past or the future, we need only to be aware of the moment. So we do ourselves an injustice if we desire healing by re-visiting the painful memories looking for clues and answers. We will actually heal in a more true and empowering way when we put our focus instead in becoming “experts” of our own present moment. We begin by being aware of our outer surroundings and being at peace with that as we notice our breath, notice the sights and sounds around us, notice the sensations of our bodies – but this is only the beginning. Awareness of our inner world, our inner space, is where we will discover the great treasures that await us if we desire to discover them.
The difficulty is that we have been trained to not pay much attention to our inner selves, our inner lives, our inner beings. And in fact, our feelings – which are a great clue as to the condition of our inner world – have been made out to be the “enemy.” So we have become disconnected from our inner self, our spirit, our soul, that when we do become aware of a prompting from our True Selves, which may come as a “gut feeling” or an intuition or even as a “coincidence” we find ourselves confused and we may even shrug it off as non-sense. We have been so trained not to trust ourselves we feel confused at the beginning when we are letting go of the old learning and trusting in a new way of being – A Way of Being True To Ourselves.
But I feel really strongly that the very beginning of a path of happiness and True Well-being begins with first an awareness of the outer world at the moment and then of the inner world in the moment. And when we will sit quietly and silently for a few moments we are sending a message to our spirit that we are “listening” and once we are listening you can bet there is a lot to be heard.
Awareness and Awakening will happen slowly, slowly, slowly if we are viewing it in a way that measures time and years and this is the great joy of life. However, a person with a mind practiced in sitting and listening will find themselves becoming aware of a part of the human condition which is not bound by time and that awareness generates patience to tolerate the seemingly slow outer progress.
So, whatever the goal, whatever the aim, whatever the crisis, whatever the fear – the first answer is always to “sit and listen.” Become Aware. When you can bring with you a prayer into that moment of sitting and listening you will increase your receptivity to the answers that are all available to you. When you can use the Divinely Inspired Words from a Divine Messenger of God then you will heighten your receptivity even more so. But the key to unlocking the door to awareness is to sit and listen. Because when we do that, we are taking a stand against the waves of crisis which want us to believe there is terror and hopelessness. When we sit and listen despite the appearances of crisis we are showing ourselves we are ready to acknowledge the victory in that moment – and there is always, always a victory. All that is required is our little willingness to see it.
This article hits so close to home, it is just amazing how much I can relate with this reflection. To live in the present has always been a struggle for me. Many times I have gone through similar panic attacks and have held on to my moments of prayer and meditation to calm my nerves. They have been my only aid and rescue from stress, hopelessness, fear, and depression. I loved the way you explained everything, thank you for sharing such wonderful insight!
Well said, Cindy! I don’t think I’d still be alive if I hadn’t found the Bahá’í Writings! That’s what got me through panic attacks!