On the Shelf: The Power Of Now

A few months ago I was STRESSED. Waking up at all hours of the morning with my mind racing and always on the verge of tears throughout the day.

A pretty sucky feeling.

I have always been a planner of sorts.  Wanting to plan every single minute of my life out.  I had a complete timeline:

In the prime of my career by 28. 
Married by 26. 
Two kids by 30. 

The list went on and on. Needless to say, things did not turn out that way and it has been both scary and humbling.

Right after college and a drama-filled divorce, I started to get so burnt out and began to have serious bouts of deep depression.  I was unmotivated to do anything.  I isolated myself from friends and family whenever I could, and I just did not feel good about myself.

I became almost numb to feeling anything after awhile and I just started to go with the flow and try to take life as it came.  I made plans but, quickly learned to work on being resilient. If this person promised me they would do something and then decided at the very last second that they couldn't, I was just like, "Ok, that's fine."

If that dream job I interviewed for decided they would go with "more suitable candidates", I said, "Ok, that's fine.  It wasn't meant for me to be there."

I had began to learn how to just be okay with life as it came.  If I tried my hardest and it did not work out, I would still be fine.

And you know what? I was starting to feel much better!  I wasn't up late at night not being able to sleep or feeling a huge lump in my throat throughout random parts of the day because I was fighting back tears.

 I will admit, it was so hard some days! Over time though my bounce back game became so strong and it felt good not to be so fearful of what could, should, might happen next.

That was until a few months ago when those crazy feelings and emotions came rushing back in.  Life became so overwhelming for me that I entertained the idea of getting in my car and running away from everything and everyone.

I came across CurlyNikki's blog post about the book, "The Power Of Now" by Eckhart Tolle one day and downloaded it right away.  I'm about halfway through and it has proved to be a real game changer for me.

 Seriously.

One of my favorite quotes from the book :

 "As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.  When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love-even the most simple action."

In layman's terms:

"Just concentrate on what's happening right now.  Only deal with NOW."

I've already started applying some of the principles in this book to my life and it has really opened my eyes up.  Of course, some days all of that goes out the window and I start to stress about wanting to be married by now or what to do about school or figuring out how to get my finances in order.  Then come the made up scenarios.  You know all of the ''woulda-shoulda-coulda's" that roll in one by one.

Just this morning I woke up around 5 am and lay there thinking about all of the above over and over again.  I was able to catch myself though and just breathe it all out. Deal with now. Just the here and now.  What is one thing that I can do right now?

Have you read "The Power of Now"?  What did you think? How has it changed your view on how you handle your everyday life?