392. 3 Ways to Be Here Now

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 392, 3 Ways to Be Here Now.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master-certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hey, everybody, welcome. How’s it going? Hope you’re having a great kickoff to 2023. And I want to talk to you about this idea of being present, being in the moment, being here now. We all know that that is a useful way to live. We’ve heard variations on this statement for a long time now. And I think we all understand that being present in the present is more peaceful, it makes us more the people that we want to be. And it’s increasingly more challenging to do as our world is filled with distractions.

And those distractions become more and more compelling and we become addicted to things like social media, and our phones, and constantly just so accessible to so many people. This is reminding me, I was driving my two youngest kids to school the other day and I plugged my phone into the car stereo so we could listen to music. and you know how if you have one of those little screens in your car sometimes it reads your phone. And so my son could suddenly see on the screen my notifications on my voicemails and things and my text messages.

And you know that little red bubble if you have an iPhone? So he said, “Mom, you have 202 un-listened to voicemails and you have 127 unread text messages. Is that true?” This is my son who’s nine years old, so he’s recently got an iPad. So now he’s understanding these notifications. And I laughed and I was like, “Yeah, that’s true.” Now, I know some of you, your skin is crawling as you hear me say that. But I said to him, “That’s nothing, let’s go to my email box, I have 36,239 unread emails.”

And again, this is not an example of stellar organization, but what I said to him was, “Oliver, here’s what you need to know. People think that because of the convenience of technology, because we are able to get a hold of someone or have someone’s attention in a moment’s notice that we should be able to. People think that they should be able to have my attention all the time and I just think that they’re wrong.” I just think that just because somebody wants to talk to me or tell me something or send me something doesn’t mean I should stop and listen.

And I’ll tell you what. I listen to the voicemails that matter. I read the text messages that matter. I even read the emails that matter but there are a whole bunch that don’t matter and guess who decides what matters? I do, my family matters, my close friends matter, my church calling matters, my clients matter. I pay attention to all of that stuff but all the other stuff doesn’t matter. And what I know is that all of that is a distraction from me being here now.

If I’m constantly listening to every voicemail, or text message, or reading every email that comes in I’m going to miss out on my kids. I’m going to miss out on life. And so that’s number one, is you have to know that we are living in a world that thinks that anyone who wants it should be able to get our attention at any moment and I think they’re wrong. I don’t think anyone should. But I’m going to give you three strategies because be here now, be present, be in the moment sounds like a lovely thing but most people are like, “How do I do that?”

When there are distractions, when our brains tend to wander, even when it’s not somebody else trying to take our time and attention, our brains tend to wander to the past or the present, that is the easiest thing for our brains to do and it’s tempting to do. It feels useful and justified but it takes us away from the present moment. Here are three strategies that I like.

Number one, engage your senses, so here’s what I mean. I’ve had this situation where I’m driving on icy roads and I need to be here now but my brain is starting to freak out. It’s like, “What if we slide off the road? What if we die? What if we get into an accident? What if another car slides into us?” What if, what if, what if. It’s starting to run away to the future. And you’ll know you’re running away to the future any time you feel fear my friends, worry and fear are always about the future. And that’s not the only time you’re running to the future but it’s definitely an indicator that you are.

So what I like to do is choose to be here now in that moment, you what I do? I stop and I notice what do I see in front of me. Our sight is one of our senses. What do I see? I see a car that’s working perfectly well. I see lights here on the interior of the car and if it’s at night, exterior of the car. I see whoever’s sitting next to me in the car. I see the road. I see trees. I see traffic lights or stop signs. I see grass or snow, or whatever I see right here right now. Come back to what you see now. Stop seeing a future vision in your head, see what’s here now.

What do I hear right now? Do I hear sounds that I’ve been blocking out? And if you can just take in a sound it just brings you back to the present. Do you hear the sound of snow crunching under your tires? Is there music that you hear? Are there people in your car talking that you hear? What do you hear? Is there a fan humming? Can you hear the heater in your car blowing heat, blowing warm air through your car? What do you hear? What do you smell? Stop and take a big whiff of the air. What does it smell like? It might smell good, it might smell like old French fries that need to get cleaned out of the car, it doesn’t matter.

We’re not trying to have a necessarily pleasant experience, we’re just trying to come back to the present. You can’t smell something in the future. You can’t smell something in the past. You can’t see or hear something from the future or the past either. You can only have thoughts in your mind. That’s not your real senses, those are memories. Your actual senses can only engage in the present moment. That’s good to know. That will bring you back to the present.

Okay, number two, focus your thoughts on other people instead of on yourself. This is a good one in situations where you are being social, especially ones that bring up some social anxiety for you. Maybe you’re meeting new people or maybe you are just, I’ve honestly used this technique when I’m meeting new people and I’m feeling kind of nervous and awkward.

But I’ve also used it if I just have a lot of worry and fear, and anxiety going on in my life. And I want to minimize that by being more present. Then I just use the other people in my life to help me be present. I don’t mean use them in a negative abusive kind of way, taking advantage of them. I mean utilize the fact that there are people there in front of me and connect with other people and start thinking about them because it brings me back to the present.

So for example if I’m in a social setting and I’m meeting new people and I notice myself get worried and nervous, and awkward, or I’m distracted and I’m thinking about other things. I come back to who am I here with? Who am I talking to? Do I even know this person’s name? If not, do I want to ask them their name? And if so, what else might I discover about them? I wonder what’s going on for them. I wonder what keeps them up at night. I wonder what’s interesting about them. I wonder what they’re thinking right now. I wonder what made them choose those shoes today.

Just start thinking about other people. And what helps me to do this a lot and brings me right back into the present is to call them by name. So let’s say, again if I’m with a group of people and I know one of their names I might stop and say, I have a friend named Abby and I might say, “Okay, but Abby, tell me about this, or what’s going on with that, or did you see this thing, or what do you think about that, or how is this part of your life going?” And just calling her by name first of all gets her attention and brings me back to focusing on being here right now with the person I’m with.

I do this also when I’m just out running errands and living my life. I do this with strangers sometimes. I will ask people their names or nice thing is that a lot of in the grocery store or at the 7-Eleven or whatever, a lot of times they have a name tag on. And I will call the worker by name. I’ll say, “Hey, Carl, thanks. Hope you have a great day today.” And just saying their name, first of all, catches them off guard, brings them right back to the present and brings me right into the present and we just connect for just a moment.

And for that moment and actually for a little while before and a little while after, I’m suddenly not worried and afraid and distracted by my problems. I’m just right here right now. Because here’s what’s true, right here, right now we just have myself and Carl, and Carl’s helping me check out at the grocery store. He’s scanning my groceries and taking my money. And everything’s fine right now. And whatever my brain is really worried about isn’t even a problem right now. We just have me and another human being and that’s a magical thing, that’s a peaceful useful moment.

So focus on other people, calling them by name is a quick way to help you do that. And again I will ask people sometimes if it feels appropriate, if I’m just having a random conversation in line at the grocery store with a stranger, I might say, “What’s your name?” “Julia.” “Okay, Julia, listen, here is what I think.” And I might continue a conversation or I might say, “Julia, what do you think about this?” Even better if I can ask her.

Okay, third way to be here now is to identify the facts, identify the facts and separate out the facts from the thoughts. Hopefully, this is not the first time you’ve heard me teach this concept but if it is, the power in separating out facts from thoughts is it brings you back to the present moment to what is really true right now. The facts have nothing to do with what was true in the past or what might be true in the future. The facts just are the facts as they exist right now. And from there you become more empowered to choose how you’re going to feel and how you’re going to think about those facts.

So I just coached a woman a couple of hours ago on our VIP coaching call in Be Bold who is going through IVF treatment for the second or third time now to get pregnant. And she has a lot of fear and concern about whether or not that’s going to work out. And what we did, because her brain is going to the past about what’s happened in the past with her IVF and her attempts to have a baby. And then it goes to the future with what’s probably going to happen, or what might happen, or what might not happen.

And some of that, sometimes she has some really lovely peaceful thoughts about being with her baby in the future. But much of it is fear and worry, and concern. That’s what our brains do, our brains think it’s protective. So what we did, we just identified the facts. The facts are you have these things that are working for you. You have viable eggs. You have a doctor who has said, “We’re totally going to make sure you have a baby, don’t give up. I am confident we can help you have a baby.”

That is what your doctor said. Doctors don’t tend to just try to make you feel good. Their job is to give you what they think is an accurate assessment of your situation. She had a thought as we were coaching about her age, “Well, my age is working against me.” I’m like, okay, but that’s not a fact. The fact is you are whatever age you are. And what’s true right now, how do we be here now? We just get the facts. I am this age and there are many women this age who have babies. There are many women actually much older than me than this who have babies.

And my doctor has said, he or she is confident I can have a baby and I have eggs, and we have science, and we have the ability to do this. Those are the facts. Do you see how that just brings us to the present? The present actually feels a lot more optimistic. The facts actually feel, this is fascinating, the facts we always say are neutral. But the truth is the facts feel more optimistic in most cases because I don’t know about you, but my initial tendency is to want to create a positive story about it, especially when it’s not my situation.

In my own situation sometimes my brain wants to go right to the negative but in other people’s it’s so easy to see why that could be a really positive optimistic abundant full of hope kind of story. So this happens a lot in businesses too. People will say, “Well, I am losing money or I’m not breaking even, or this marketing thing isn’t working, or my business hasn’t succeeded yet, or I failed over and over again.” No, come on, let’s come back to the present. Let’s be here now. What are the facts? I’ve invested this much money. I’ve earned this much money, or I’ve earned zero money. I’ve invested this much money.

But here’s the truth, you have tried a bunch of things. I have taken these classes. I have learned these skills. I have met these people. I have tested these things. You could be proud of yourself about that but the facts are just the facts. And now what do we want to do going forward is optional, But being here now with your business or with your fertility plans allows you to get centered, and grounded, and get to that peaceful faith-filled place that we all talk about, that we all say we believe is available through Jesus Christ.

And yet so many of us don’t know how to do it. So that is not an all-inclusive list. If you have other ideas about how to be here now I would love to hear them and we will continue to share them. But the three that we covered today just by way of review, engage your senses, focus on other people, call them by name if possible and identify the facts, just pull the facts out from the thoughts and notice how you will feel more grounded and present,

Alright, thanks for joining me today on Better Than Happy. I love you all so much. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for rating and reviewing. Make sure you subscribe the podcast because as you may have seen we have bonus episodes on Entre Talk happening every Monday and I’d love to have you join me for those as well. So have a beautiful magical weekend. I’ll see you next time. Bye.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too? Just saying.