Hello and thank you for taking the time to check out my blog. Like you, I read many emails and blogs each day and sometimes information intuitively strikes me as something I must share with others. Today this happened with an article from Finer Minds. The article is "Ten Steps to Cultivate the Now Habit" by Scott H. Young. The article opens with:

"We all need something to anchor ourselves. Something to give us certainty and happiness through the ups and downs in life. A compass point to give the day direction and prevent feeling meaningless and letting disorientation creep in.

Some people use relationships, status or religion as that anchor. I believe the best one of all is simply the now. Cultivating a habit to focus on what is, not what might be or what was, is a happy way to live. Relationships can end, status can fail and religion can delude, but the now is a constant."

Now, you might wonder why this particular article stood out to me and why I want to share it with you. My very dear friend, Triné, an amazing life facilitator, teacher of alternative mediatation and founder of The Center in Virginia Beach, VA (http://www.thecenterva.com/) has coached me to stay in the moment - in other words be in the now. Triné's advice and the tools she has given me to accomplish this have helped me tremendously when life sometimes gets in the way of staying clear and balanced.

Some of the tools I personally use are:

• A daily gratitude list (some days it's one thing and some days it's pages long - the point is that I focus on what I am grateful for each day and allows me to appreciate the now of each day)
• Daily Meditation (meditating puts me in the now of myself - I use both guided meditation as well as silent meditation depending on what I intuitively require in that moment of making time to meditate each day)
• Focusing on a coin (because there are two sides to a coin - an example of how I use this tool is when something like a traffic jam is frustrating me, I remind myself that it just means I have more time to sing my favorite songs in the car - I allow myself to release my frustration, remembering that there is a positive to every negative and returning to the present moment of dirving my car)
• Do one thing at a time - in other words, cut down on multi-tasking and allow yourself to actually experience what you are doing (now I realize this cannot always be the case in life - so give it a try when it is feasible)
• The rewind method - an example of this is when we begin thinking negative thoughts about someone that cut me off on my way to an appointment - when I catch myself doing something like this, I say (sometimes out loud) "wait, rewind that - what I meant to say is 'I realize you must be in more of a hurry than I am so I am more than happy to get out of your way'" (by doing this, I return to the now of driving to my appointment and I stop being caught up in negative criticism of someone I don't even know)

To see the entire article, please visit the website noted below:
http://daily.finerminds.com/mind/10-steps-to-get-your-mind-into-the-present-moment/

I hope you enjoy this blog entry. I welcome your comments to let me know what you think of this and my other posts.

Love, peace and joy
~Leticia Albright, Founder and CEO - Inspiration Annex

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