How To Be More Present

 Hello beautiful people! Welcome to HAPPY DAYS podcast. I am Kelly Ward - Your host. 

Happy New Year! I wish everyone listening lots of happiness, love, success and good health this year, to you and your loved ones. I hope everyone has had an awesome week so far. I had a very relaxed New Years Eve, I did a lot of reflecting and expressed a lot go gratitude for the past year and all of the amazing moments I had as well as the beautiful lessons I learnt which has made me much stronger. I am super keen to be spending time with you and today's topic is all about how to be more present. 

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I wanted to discuss how to be more present, because sometimes we get caught up in our worries, struggles and stressful moments in our lives, that end up consuming all of our time. The reason why I love meditation so much is because it allows you to slow down, detach yourself from your thoughts and bring yourself back to the present moment, which will calm you. The greatest gift we can give to ourselves is the gift of being more present in our lives. Where we are more engaged, connected with each other, practicing more kindness, remaining open minded and being free from judgement. This year, I think it is so important to take inventory of your life, for example - what people in your life are adding positive attributes and what people do not make you feel good about yourself. What areas in your life are you unhappy with and what steps are you going to take to change it? How are you going to love yourself more, so that you make better decisions for yourself? These are the types of questions you need to be asking yourself, because if we constantly do the same things we did before, how are we going to change and improve our lives. It is so easy to wake up every day and sit in front of the tv, because it keeps our minds busy, however if you know that you are not feeling good mentally right now, you need to put in that extra effort and do something positive for yourself, that you may not want to do in the moment, but what will make you feel good in the long run. For example - read a book, go for a walk in nature, cook something or paint. Do something that is going to put you in a good frame of mind, that is going to slowly help you, to get out of the usual slump you feel everyday, because waking up, scrolling social media for hours and then putting the television on and not putting any effort into strengthening your mental health, will not help you at all. For some of us, it is hard to be self motivated and I am going to create an episode on tips on how to become more self motivated, so that you have the ability to push yourself when you are not feeling your best. It can be very hard to be self motivated however if you know that about yourself, you need to find solutions on how you are going to improve that and change that about yourself, because it is a skill that is going to benefit you tremendously in your life. 

No matter what you are going through in life, it is so important to bring yourself to the present moment, because it helps you to show up better in your life for yourself and others. So many people ask the question - how can I be more present? Well, if you put that into practice in reality, it could mean being more present in a conversation with someone, taking pride in a project you are busy with and making sure your focus is on it 100percent or it could simply mean, going for a morning walk and taking a deep breath and showing gratitude in that moment for all that you have. 

Basically what meditation teaches us on a deeper level is how to be able to sit with challenging emotions when they arise and learning the skill of being present with anger, being present with sadness, being present with joy and being able to be more present with a strong emotion without getting caught up in it. You might be thinking, it sounds much easier said than done Kelly, however learning to anchor yourself in the present moment will help you, because we as humans constantly dwell on the past or we have worries about tomorrow, and that holds us back because we become so consumed on what is to come than focusing our energy on this very moment, which will help you to reach the goals you have for yourself, because what you do right now, in this moment, will determine what is to come in the future. 

So I want to discuss 4 simple but incredible ways to be more present in your life.

Do a body scan. So what you need to do is mentally scan your body from top to bottom and basically bring your awareness to every ache, pain or sensation that you might be feeling right now. When you consciously breathe into these feelings, you are sitting in the present moment and learning how to pay more attention to every physical and emotional feeling that is being shown to you. You are simply noticing everything which is the first step to becoming present. You could even practice breath work, which allows you to bring yourself back to this present moment, when you are feeling stressed out. The simple art of breathing is so beneficial to release those feelings of worry and letting go of what you cannot control. 

Practice mindfully eating. So often we tend to eat on auto pilot between meetings, conversations or in the car and instead of actually showing gratitude for the food in front of you, we tend to eat it super fast without even savoring it. When we learn to practice more mindful eating, we are able to engage our senses and take time to savor each meal. Eating is something we do every single day and it is important to start encouraging the idea of being more mindful with every bite. Why not enjoy the moment? 

Learn to not check your phone as soon as you wake up. How many of us, wake up to a bunch of notifications on our device from the moment, we wake up to the moment we go to bed. This definitely makes it hard to stay present in the moment. I totally get it. However in a world where we are all involuntary moving around through life sometimes mindlessly, we do always have a choice. So allow yourself moments every day where you put your device down, turn off the volume and focus on here and now - your priorities, your mental health, how you are feeling today and your breath. By doing this practice, which will be hard at first, you are able to take your control back versus all of those distractions steering your day for you. Take your power back. 

Create a healthy routine. Routines can help us stay on track and feel empowered and by building a routine that is built on the idea that you are a priority can definitely help you feel anchored when it comes to decision making throughout your day. I suggest incorporating meditation sessions in your everyday life, if you are interested in learning to become more present and if you are someone who finds themselves feeling overwhelmed everyday. Make the effort to get yourself out of negative patterns so that you can feel good and centered again. Learning how to live more in the present moment goes beyond goals you want to achieve, but it allows you to trust yourself, take the time to spend quality time with those you love and also having the ability to find great joy in every experience in your life. By being more present, you are developing a more positive perspective in life which will greatly benefit you. If you take the time to really be present, you will begin to experience an increasing amount of confidence, in being at ease with both comfort and discomfort, challenges and joy. Achieving happiness in your life is possible. 

I truly hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you are new to HAPPY DAYS, I release podcast episodes every Wednesday! 

Wishing you a beautiful year ahead and a lovely week further. 

I love you :)

Goodbye!