A CBT reframe: Be Present…

I recently had a health drama, and had to CBT myself – and as a CBT ninja, (it is my job after all, so I can call myself that), I accepted reality and ‘self regulated’ – but at the most scary ‘high negative event’ time at the start, waiting for initial biopsies, with the my threat response on high, when I couldn’t eat or sleep, I reached for philosophy as art – and the following quotes were printed, and in my purse and pinned on the wall beside me, and welded into my head for me to repeat as centering mantras. And I give them to you now, if they are needed:

 

Do not go sour and dark – choose to LIVE IN THE PRESENT instead of the past or future…

 

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles – but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
~~ Buddha

“But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.” ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The present is never our goal, the past and present are our means, the future alone is our goal. Thus we never live but we hope to live, and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so.” ~~ Blaise Pascal 

When you find yourself excessively worrying about the future, or going over the past and dramas or regrets, remind yourself that neither exist here right now. The past is gone, it’s done, and we’re not even a particularly reliable narrator of what exactly happened. The future is not here yet, and you cannot have certainty of prediction – whatever you’re imagining hasn’t happened yet, and might never happen. “If we wish away our todays for yesterday or tomorrow, then we never properly have a ‘today’.”

Choosing Acceptance and Living in the Present, accepting life as it is right now, not as it ‘should’ have been, will calm and centre you. If you want to change your life, the only place to do it is in the present. Aim to accept and learn from the past, then let it go and move on positively.

Deliberately choose to stop and think of what the present is, right here right now, and get on with the business of living your real actual life.

BE HERE NOW – YOU ARE PRIVILEGED