Power Of Now - Experiment 1

My findings yesterday were as follows:

I tried believe me I tried to be in the now and for a little while I was. I sat down on my bed and cleared everything from it, just thought about sitting. All of a sudden these thoughts start appearing in my head of what I needed to do. Here is what they were - Look up casting websites, get rid of cold, do university work. It was weird because it almost felt like these thoughts were little alarms in my head. Obviously these alarms were telling me that 1. These were the most important and 2. They were thoughts/alarm bells with consequences. The thoughts were also showing me the consequences of not doing one if not all of these things. For most of the morning all I focused on was looking for casting websites and drinking honey and lemon. This was going really well until the afternoon where a few demons (past and future) came suddenly rushing into my thought system.

   Currently from the past and the future, there are a few demons. There is especially one that I haven't dealt with at all well but we will get back to this one in a minute. Currently it was snowing where I live and had no way of getting back by train or car to my university. Where my university is it isn't snowing and today it is open. My future thoughts went in to panic mode, 'I am not going to make it in to uni', ' I have a lot of stuff I need to take back with me and I can't take all of it back by train', 'My boyfriend can't drive me back what am I going to do?' I became really stressed out and that I would have to rearrange all my stuff again for things I could take with me in just one suitcase.
   What crept up also is the fact that my Grandpa had recently passed away and that I would have to miss a couple of days off Uni for his funeral as the funeral is about 5 hours away from where I live. So more future thoughts came in to play. ' I am going to miss a week of Uni I can't do this!', ' The school is not going to put in my money I need to survive in my account' 'What am I going to do?' - So I cried for a bit because I had no idea what I was going to do.
   Then it hit me. I went back to both thoughts and really assessed each one. I took the first thought and said to myself that you can't help being trapped by snow there is a lot of trouble that is happening with it and you are not the only one. The University will understand.
   The one about having to repack my stuff, I still had a grudge against, however I realised that if I was incredibly careful I would be able to take what I NEED to University and have my boyfriend take the rest up when he comes and visits me. (This one took me a sleeps worth and the next morning to calm down with this one).
   The one about my Grandpa, it became obvious. He was an important figure in my life and a couple of days off from University is nothing compared to saying goodbye to a loved one.
  Plus if I went today back to University, (which I am hopefully), then I would be attending almost half of my lessons anyway.

So what i have learn't from all of this is to Focus on a task in the NOW. If any other thoughts pop up, especially future ones, do not ignor them! Obviously give yourself time to think about the future thoughts and assess them, but once you have the answer and the explanation it is easier.

A Tip On How To Deal With Future Thoughts:

1. Let the future thought crop up first and warn you of all the things that are 'against you'.
2. In order to deal with a future thought you have to relax, so I suggest something that helps you do that.
3. Future thoughts are and can be very scary and stressful, so once relaxed, write down what is making you stressed about the situation.
4. Look at what you have and write down a solution by writing down what happened as if you have already done it or how important these future thoughts really are. If they are important e.g Grandpa passing away, then that doesn't compare to missing a few days off work.

I would write about my past demon 'thought' but I feel I have given you enough to think about and I will discuss that one in my next blog. I will also be using this method when future thoughts pop back up again and tell you my findings.

I am a little bit stress free now because of what I have done and when they pop up again, I can tell myself that they have been resolved, how they have been resolved and why.

Thanks for reading,
Naomi