Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
An almost-daily podcast for the State of Mind Community.
Offering ideas and answering questions on how to use your mind for growth, happiness and ultimately peace.
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Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
The Present is Where We Live: Be, Choose, Act, Now.
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Can focusing on the present moment truly transform your life? Today on Coffee with Hilary and Les, we're unlocking the secrets of "Living in the Present Moment." Through engaging metaphors and heartfelt personal stories, we challenge the myths surrounding our fixation on the past and our anxiety about the future. Discover how making conscious choices in the now can not only reduce your stress but also open up a world of opportunities. Join us as we explore practical techniques to shift your mindset, making the present moment the most powerful tool you have for a fulfilling life.
In our second chapter, "Embracing the Power of Now," we dive deeper into the essential practice of being fully present. Learn the value of setting intentions and how the present moment can be a powerful space for planning and reflection. We'll unpack how negative emotions rooted in fear and anger can cloud our peace of mind and offer insights on quieting the mind for deeper inspiration. Through practical tips and thoughtful reflections, we'll show you that the present moment is not just a fleeting second but the foundation for creating a more intentional and inspired future. Don't miss this thought-provoking conversation that could change the way you live your life.
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Welcome and thank you for joining us for Coffee with Hilary and Les, brought to you by the State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre located in the heart of the Kawartha Lakes. This is our almost daily community podcast about the mind and how we all might change it in the most simple and helpful ways. Every day, we sit staring at the lake and sipping our coffee, chatting about hypnosis and how to make those meaningful adjustments to our state of mind, because nothing's more important than your state of mind. Okay, we're outside. Tiny tiny breeze, water's running just doesn't get better. Just being here right now, just being here right now.
Speaker 1:It'd be cool to interview people here.
Speaker 2:Like have them come over. Yeah, I don't think they get up as early as us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:But here we are right now. Right now, it's a beautiful day. No comparison to the past, no hope for a better future.
Speaker 1:Do you want to reword that? Well, we're talking about past, present and future, and we're finally on girl.
Speaker 2:Well, we're talking about past, present and future, and we're finally on the present.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did past and then future and now present.
Speaker 2:That's right, because past and future are just non-existent. They don't ever exist. Once it's in the past, it's gone. And that's why past is a myth. There see, past is a myth and future doesn't exist. It hasn't happened yet. It's something we fixate on, but it's not there. It's not true, it's not actually now.
Speaker 1:It's in our imagination. That's right.
Speaker 2:It's nothing but imagination it's whatever we can imagine, and we can imagine good as easily as we can imagine bad. So if I'm in the present, I'm not hoping about the future. That's what I meant. I'm not hoping about the future and I'm not worrying and suffering from the past. I've already learned from it, so I let it go. So we should talk about the present, Because it's really all there is.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:The present is all there is. That's right. The present is all there is. I sort of have two sound bites. I can't choose between. The present is all there is, it's all there is. And the other one is the present is where we live. And I like that one because I think we forget to live. I know I do. I'll get all caught up in my mind. I'll get all caught up in what's happening around me, I'll get all concerned about the future and then I'll lose what opportunity I have to live. The present is where we live, it's all that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find when I'm stressed about the future, I find myself grasping in the present moment, almost like I let go of what could be now.
Speaker 2:And I start thinking in constant future thoughts. We're so good at imagining problems, anticipating what might go wrong, who might attack us, where things might jump the rails, and that's just imagining, that's just the future, and it hasn't happened. And in fact, you know one of the questions you can ask yourself really, what problems do I have right now? The thing about problems is when they are problems and they're real problems and you're experiencing them in the present, then there's something to be done. It's amazing how smart we are. There's not a lot of people out there that don't know exactly what to do when a problem presents itself in the present. Yeah, when a problem presents itself in the present.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yet we spend a lot of time worrying about it. We waste our present by worrying about the future. We waste our present by ruminating over the past and whatever is really in front of us gets missed, gets, gets ignored.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find I mean I can't say I'm amazing at it, but I try but I find when I'm working with clients who are stuck in the past and the future, it's almost like they're walking down a hallway in their mind and all they see is the hallway and they don't see the doors on either side. And then when they come into the present moment, it's like suddenly they're able to see those doors open, all the doors that they want to see open, and they start to notice them open instead of having kind of tunnel vision going down the corridor Just kind of gives you that breath back and that ability to, as we're going to get into, is like choose. You suddenly see choices available to you instead of fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the critical part, isn't it? When we teach time management, we talk about this $86,000 in a bank account that you got every day and you can only spend it today and once the day is over you lose it, and it's really just a symbol of the seconds in a day. And I think sometimes we get overly focused on the concept of time and we think about seconds and minutes and days when really they're not a good way to think of it, because we think of them in volume, we think of them as quantity, whereas what we're really saying is you've got 86,000 nows, 86,000 moments to act. You know at least 86,000 choices you could make. I find it to be an enormous reframe when people shift their mind from saying I live moment by moment, day by day, hour by hour, month by month, year by year, and it's not really how you live, right, that's just a clock ticking in the background. It's really not about what you're living. You're not living years, you're not living weeks, you're not living months. You're not living months, you're not living weekends, you're living choices. That's the act of living.
Speaker 2:The act of living is making a decision, is choosing now, choosing right now what is the most wonderful thing I could do. What is the most inspiring thing I could do? What is the most compelling thing I could do? What is the most inspiring thing I could do? What is the most compelling thing I can do? What is the most meaningful to me thing I can do right now? Because now is all I have, and so when time is just relegated to a measurement, you know and is is pushed away, knowing that the past is myth and the future is just imagination, then it becomes what am I going to do now? Because the present is all I have. The present is where I live and the present is where I make choices. It's where I choose what to say, what to think or what to do. It's always right now.
Speaker 1:And I think every day we kind of make the same choices, not knowing it, and that's where we get caught up in, I don't know, stagnant feeling. Stagnant, feeling stuck, and it can be a little scary thinking that we can go outside the box and choose differently, but it's so small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love what the Buddha says. The Buddha says you only have one problem. Your only problem is you think you have time, and it's when we think that we have all this future in the bank that we think we can spend our present moment worrying about the past, that we can spend our present moment ruminating and confused and paralyzed. You know time when it's perceived as a quantity and a thing. I don't think that's helpful. I don't think that that is a useful way to help us make choices and act in our lives.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, because it puts pressure on you, because you might just feel like you're strained and running out of time or something.
Speaker 2:Well, you are.
Speaker 1:Well, yes. No, no, but it's unhelpful when you've already got so much pressure on you to think about it as constrained.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, you're never running out of time, you always have right now. I know it feels that way, though, because we think of it quantitatively.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's just not helpful. But, even just talking about this stuff puts us right here now, doesn't it? I'm aware of the sun on my face. I'm aware of the sound of the birds.
Speaker 1:We're going to be aware of Tykes barking in a moment.
Speaker 2:Isn't that interesting. You know, there was a story I heard a long time ago about being ready. What does being ready mean? What does anticipating mean? And the story was about a wolf. A wolf is always aware and always ready to act. And always ready to act, but not in a tense, anxious, worried state, but just constantly aware of its surroundings. And that we as people could learn a lot from that. Because we are to be aware, we are to be in the present moment and when opportunity presents itself, right then and there, that's when to turn on all the energy and power and strength, fortitude that you have. That's when to turn it all on and act on it, and that it's. It's never that a wolf is waiting. It is always that a wolf is aware and capable, and I just thought that was kind of a neat story. I heard that years and years ago. But how do we best engage the present moment? How do we best be prepared, be prepared.
Speaker 1:I think, um, I think of, uh, joe Dispenza saying that he says every day we have 60,000 thoughts. Whether that's words or actual, like full on thoughts, I'm not exactly sure. But, um, I think about if we're to be more present. It's really about just practicing and noticing. And the more you notice the present moment, the more of a habit that might become Right, it, that might become right. So, when you're caught up in life and you're all over the place, all over the map in your mind, if you can, if you can just catch yourself, I mean it's no different than being the observer, um, the thought of that, catching yourself, going off in all directions and then coming back to the present moment, and I feel like the more you do that throughout the day, the more it will be part of those 60 000 thoughts and it will just become habit.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure the greatest monk out there gets caught up in thoughts. You know, like, so I, especially when I'm working with clients, I notice a lot of clients beat themselves up for not being present all the time. I'm not even sure, I mean, god knows, but I'm not even sure it's possible to be present fully all the moments of your life. Um, so give yourself some grace for that. But I think it is. It's about practicing. I think it's just about creating a habit around it.
Speaker 2:I think it's valuable to have intentions. I think it's valuable to do planning, sometimes, to use your present to do some planning, to open your mind to imagining positive things. I think sometimes it's worthwhile to use your present to examine the past and come to conclusions and learn the lessons and forgive it. I think it's valuable to use the present as it relates to the whole of your being. As it relates to the whole of your being. I think that it's valuable to be aware of what your intentions are, but I think that in the moment, if you are holding your intention, there's waiting for you in that moment this thing, this inspiration, this insight, the light in the moment itself that inspires you. Right, and when you are aware of where you are and what's going on and your intentions, inspiration will come, and it will come frequently and it will come in ways that sometimes we don't like. We'll be inspired to do things we've been avoiding. We will be inspired to do things that we're afraid of, but to know that in this moment all of my problems evaporate.
Speaker 2:In this moment, all of my past is just myth, just a story I tell myself. In this moment, I create my future. There's a lot of power there. It's hard I mean, it's easier said than done because we're so used to ruminating over our past and we're so used to complaining about conditions the way they are and we're so used to worrying about the future. Am I enough? Do I have enough? Will there be enough? What will happen? What are all these forces in my life that I can't control? What will they do?
Speaker 2:It's really easy to spend a lot of your present moment on all that stuff, recognize that stuff as mythical past or imaginary future, and then formulate that intention. What do I want from this moment? What do I want from this day? What do I want from this series of nows that I'm about to live? What do I want from that? And then allow yourself to be inspired. And the more you practice that, I think, the more the inspiration will come. And the more you respond to those impulses and those inspirations, the more they come, the more you're aware of them, the more you listen to them, the more you'll hear them.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was all caught up in like a just a thought of almost like an art exhibit, of standing in a room and like these projected lights that spell out now and they're just moving towards you, like, and you just stand there and the now moves through you and the now moves through you and the lights move through you.
Speaker 2:It's a nice image. And when we see the truth of these statements right, the truth that there is only now, now is where we live. Living is not being, living is choosing and acting on those choices. That's living. When we see the truth of that, it's easy to compare that to the programming we have received and it's easy to get caught up in worry and frustration and resentment.
Speaker 2:The programming we receive isn't helpful. Certainly it's not helpful when it comes to being effective. It's not helpful in having peace while you're being effective. It's not helpful when you're even trying to plan your future or develop intentions. The things you want to accomplish today, the things you want to do or be today and I guess, as a hypnotist, that's what I've discovered over the years. I've discovered it in myself and I've discovered it by helping others with it is that we have a lot of bad programming that's based in fear, that's based in fear, that's based in anger, it's based in attack, right, and it just gets in the way.
Speaker 2:Inside everyone is a whole set of dreams, a whole set of intentions, and you can only be in touch with those. Now. That was a nice silence. There's a saying, and I love it spirit speaks to the quiet mind. Sometimes the best thing you can do in the now, in the present moment, is try to silence yourself, not restrict yourself or confine yourself. Is try to silence yourself, not restrict yourself or confine yourself or, you know, put a big grip on yourself, but just to allow yourself to stop. Stop, stop thinking, stop moving, allow your senses to be present, allow your awareness to be open, listen, feel, look, look, breathe and allow what comes to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another nice silence I know I'm off, I'm just I don't know where I am, hmm there's always time to do and you feel free to grab your present moment. And do grab your present moment and act on your schedule, because we use time as a schedule. We we pick arbitrary times to do certain things. I'm supposed to go to the gym in six minutes, right, and we have to do this and that and the other thing by various times. Breakfast is at this time and dinner's at that time. Second breakfast is at this time, second breakfast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, breakfast yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, well, I hope this was just a thoughtful time. Yeah, I hope that the truth shows itself to everyone, to me, to you, to everyone. Mm-hmm, the present is where you live.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And while you're busy dealing with a mythical past or imagining a scary future, the present moment, which is all you have, passes right by. So grab the present moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the present is where we live we hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that maybe it helped even a little. If you have any questions, we would love you to send them along in an email to info at psalmhypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the State of Mind community. For more information about hypnosis and the various online or in-person services we provide, please visit our website, wwwpsalmhypnosiscom. The link will be in the notes below. While you are there, why don't you book a free one-hour journey, meeting with Hilary or less, to learn more about what hypnosis is and how you might use it to make your life what you want it to be? Bye for now. Talk to you tomorrow, thank you.
