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Paying In Advance by Guy Spiro A good friend recently described one of the common mistakes that many people make as paying in advance ... when you may not have to pay at all. What he was talking about is the habit of fearing something that may or may not happen in the future--and endlessly running the scenario, with all of the most troubling possibilities and disastrous outcomes, through the mind--while feeling the emotions and working up a lather 'cause there's lions and tigers and bears, oh, my! It may seem funny here but anyone who has ever lain awake in the middle of the night scared stiff, with sleep not even remotely possible, worrying about some potential disaster that may befall them, knows how not funny it can be. Lying in bed at night or giving up your daytime attention to it is one of the most damaging of habits. It is a fact of life on the physical plane that unpleasantness sometimes occurs. The world can deal harshly with us at times and we may as well know it. But when we fall into the habit described above, we compound that fact into much more than it ever needs to be and this is a mistake in several ways. When we run these doomsday scenarios in our minds and emotions we are creating the conditions for them to manifest all the way down to the physical. Because we are thinking the thoughts and feeling the wretched emotions, we are experiencing the dreaded potential as if it were really happening. Since our subconscious mind does not differentiate between the physical and the non-physical, this has the effect of giving us the experience for all of the hours, weeks, months or even years that we put into it. This greatly prolongs the pain of the dreaded event, which, if it ever really happens, probably comes and goes in a short period of actual time. The root of this lies in the undisciplined mind. Because the mind lives in the past and the future, it tends to spend its time reflecting on the past and planning for the future. When negativity reigns, this amounts to brooding over the past and nursing the wounds as well as fearing future pain. But neither the past nor the future exists in the now--and pain is rarely happening in the now. When we find ourselves caught up in this morass, it is possible to stop it. The first thing to do is to recognize that what we are fearing is not happening in the present moment. In the present moment the future is not. Whatever you can't do anything about in the now is not happening. If the wolverines are not currently nibbling on your fingertips, then everything is fine in the now that you find yourself. Stay in the now and find your refuge. In the middle of the night, in your warm and comfy bed, you are safe from the future. Enjoy that moment of calm and rest. When fears of the future accost your daytime hours, look at the moment and see if what is scaring you is present. By keeping our attention on the ever unfolding and endlessly fascinating now, we find freedom. |
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