I recently heard part of a talk Eckhardt Tolle gave on deflating the ego (the thinking mind) in which he gives a simple but profoundly energising tool, being; “live each moment as if you have chosen it”.
Quick example: you want to be home with shoes off, but you’re in the supermarket shopping – you can either mull over the awfulness; which drains your energy – or you can live the moment ‘as if you have chosen it’.
Life’s moment to moment clashes between what you want and what you are presented with can take up quite a bit of energy if you let them. If we let the ego have it’s way, it will get quite busy reviewing where things went wrong, how things ‘shouldn’t’ be and (at a deeper level) what you’ve done to get yourself there. This takes time and is a completely unnecessary energy drain.
We all know this right? But the decision to be conscious about this mental game-changer, makes all the difference. This one tool, ‘living the moment as if you have chosen it’ is what we use once we’ve made the decision to be more conscious.
The keywords are the ‘as if’ part of the intention. The whole idea that we create our experience can get a little heavy sometimes, and we can get caught up judging ourselves about what we’ve done or not done to find ourselves in whatever situation we feel trapped in/ unhappy with / victimised by.
This simple practice frees up the hows, whys and buts and moves you beyond that straight into the now – deflating the ego like pulling air from a balloon and conserving huge amounts of mental energy to be put towards other things.
watch the clip for yourself here:
‘Reach for a moment of happiness. Happiness is when you happily do something. Otherwise, life is a painful curse’ Yogi Bhajan
image from: msbusiness.com