I keep thinking how we go about most of our lives, always anticipating what will follow.
When you look forward to something or dread it for that matter -a party, an event, a yoga class, a trip, an encounter, a conversation- you invariably start projecting and wondering what it is going to be like, you fabricate images or even a whole sequence of events in the mind, You wonder what the hotel room looks like and how big it is, is the view nice, is the food good, you visualize yourself arriving there, checking in, unpacking and then going down to meet your friends, you even go to the lengths of narrating to yourself an actual conversation you had with one of them.
This familiar scenario or any other similar one creates a form of anxiety in our consciousness as we are falsifying a reality that in essence cannot be what will unfold. We have no control over the future nor the ability to foresee it. So why do we keep time traveling forward?
The answer is because it is the nature of our minds. A mind that loves being everywhere but in the here and now.
Every time I revisit a turn of events or a moment I had anticipated with anxiety or fear, not only do I see how different it is than what I had projected, but also how polluting these preconceived ideas were to my mind.
Until we invent real time travel into the future or find the portal that leads us there, your practice as of today might be pausing every time you catch yourself anticipating something and reminding yourself to allow a moment to unfold as it is….