The present moment is freedom.
This freedom is the essence of true happiness.
Life happens in the 'now' and never not in the now.
Most people confuse their life with the things that seem to make up their life. But that is not your life, they are just the things that happen to be in your life at this time.
For example, if your car breaks down on the way home from work you may think your life is hard or you might say “FML”.
You are seeing the THINGS of your life as YOU. But they are not the same. It is a false equivalence, a misinterpretation and an illusion but it's very easy to be tricked.
Albert Einstein famously once said...
The things of your life (events, people, finances, goals, set backs etc.) are just that... things.
They are not you.
Even your emotions, thoughts, body & mind are not you. They are “yours” and make up aspects of your personality (also known as your ego) but they are not who you really are.
Your life (who you really are) is beyond all of these things that you have experienced or acquired. You are the one observing and experiencing it all so how could those things possibly be you.
Yet when you step into the present moment "those things" become obviously secondary to you.
You then can see that in fact you are consciousness itself (pure awareness) and that you are simply observing it all.
You are pure awareness, or said another way, you are consciousness itself.
You may say that you know this, but look at this again for a second time.
We are not just saying you are conscious, which is true... we are saying "who you really are" IS consciousness itself!
Awareness also known as presence, or consciousness, or love is what is always primary. The true reality from which everything else pours out from. Everything you experience, feel, touch, hear, taste and smell stems out of that primary awareness.
This is why happiness seems so illusive for humanity, it's already within you yet we have all been taught to look for it outside of us. The path or the journey really isn't out there, it is in you!
All personal growth, change, success and happiness comes from within. That may seem obvious but again we invite you to look at how you are going about your life right now.
We are all currently where we are in life directly due to our current level of consciousness.
There is no "bad or good" here, instead just infinite levels of growth and it works in cycles.
Just like the seasons things grow and die in a never ending cycle and we do the same. Within our lifetime we have smaller cycles that we experience to help us grow consciously. Parts of us grow and die literally and figuratively throughout our life. You shed old ways and patterns and create new ones as needed much like a tree loses its leaves and creates new ones next spring.
You can see this when you repeatedly do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Many claim this to be the definition of insanity as the old saying goes. However a truer statement is that repeating these cycles and getting the same undesired result is the definition of unconsciousness, you don't have to be insane, just unaware.
The remedy is awareness. Awareness is freedom. Freedom is happiness.
Once you become aware of your own areas of unconsciousness, you instantly expand and grow in that moment and free yourself from the things of this world that are not you and are not real. You break the shackles holding so many of us down in a single instant.
Even reading this right now the process has begun and will continue on, but it is not guaranteed. You must continue to choose and decide what you want to be. It is a choosing to be an active participant. You become calm, alert and aware about what's happening within you. This is a feeling of being alive like most have never experienced before. This is happiness.
You have been gift a great treasure called life as a human being and as a result you are responsible for this individual experience.
Nothing changes until our consciousness changes. When we open up, we shine new light on our world and how we see the world. When you see the world in a new light, the world literally lights up right before your eyes.
Each moment of now is the opportunity to step into this light. Each moment is a portal to the now where expanded awareness lays waiting to tapped into.
This is freedom.
This is happiness.
Each moment you have a choice to detach from the things we mistakenly identify as ourselves and break free!
Of course just reading this and watching the video won't allow you access to the entirety of it all. Again nothing outside of you can do that for you. You can’t “get this” solely on an intellectual level. That again, would be identifying with the things of this world.
Instead, you can only BE this to know it fully.
You can either choose to be conscious and realize more fully or choose something else.
It's up to you.
There is no replacement or substitute for this presence and it can only happen in the eternal moment of now.
However, developing a practice of meditation can help you to bring awareness into each moment in regular everyday life. The key word there is practice.
The best tool we personally have found for this is simply referred to as meditation. A lot gets wrapped up to this word like many labels and titles tend to, but we define it a bit different.
In the video below we breakdown our definition along with what you need to know to start your own version right now. We give some general starting points as it should evolve to be personalized and customized to you, by you as you continue your own practice if you choose.
We also cover the top 4 myths, the #1 skill for success and the 4-breath meditation to help you get into the present moment of right now!
This will not only help you with daily life, but also with those really hard things like losing weight, relationships and whatever else comes your way down the road.
Our hope is to inspire you to look just a bit deeper within yourself for any guidance or help you are currently seeking. It's not that outside help is "bad", it's just that your "inner world" is the primary concern and all else is secondary.
As all great teachers and guides through the millennia have noted, it has to come from within if it is to last and be true.
So in case you forgot, you are already whole, already good enough and have everything you will ever need for the life you want. It's just that sometimes we can't see what's already here and it's beneficial to get a different perspective from time to time.
Consider this a friendly nudge to "go back home" within yourself.
Meditation is a gateway back to your true nature and that path is extraordinarily beautiful friends.
Please let this video be the next small next step on your journey back to yourself where freedom, health and happiness are waiting in abundance.
Here’s to living freely in 2019, enjoy!
-Wendy + Dan