Meta-Stating Living in the Present

Introduction:

Living in the present is crucial to enjoy and lead a successful life. However, many live their lives thinking most of the times about their negative experiences in the past or worried about their future. To be in the “zone”, in flow with what you are doing and experiencing a peak performance as Dr. L. Michael Hall described it, you have to be present with all your resources to the one activity you are experiencing or doing at the moment.

So, living in the present is an important frame that one should hold in mind to access the genius state which is an intense state of focus and engagement to one activity you are dealing with like reading or playing music.

An example of healthy ratios mostly living in the present and partially living in the past and future:

Time Line / Thinking percentage / Purpose

• Past / 10% / Learning lessons and good memories
• Present / 70% / Enjoying life, in the “Zone” with peak performance
• Future / 20% / Planning

Distinctions:

• Human Beings can spend their mental-emotional energy living in the past, present, and future.  Recognizing where you are “living” enables you to change it.
• Changing the sub-modalities of how the past,  present,  and future are represented in the time line, enables someone to change the mental-emotional energy invested in each.
• In someone’s timeline,  mental and emotional energy invested in:
  • the past is for learning the lessons from our own experience.
  • the present is for being present and engaged with all our mental and emotional resources to the one thing we are experiencing at the moment.
  • the future is for planning.

Elicitation Questions:

How much of your mental-emotional energy  invested in the past, present,  and future?

The Pattern:

1)      Identify mental-emotional energy  invested in the past, present and future.

How much of your mental-emotional energy  invested in the past,  present, and future?

2)      Decide on what to change

So, if you were to be present and engaged to what you are experiencing like reading for example, how much will you allocate of your mental-emotional energy to the present?

How much will you allocate for the past so that you can use it as a reference for some good lessons and as internal resources?

How much will you allocate for the future to use it for planning?

3)      Elicit your timeline 

How do you represent your time line?

Where is the past and where is the future?

Think about an experience that happened in the past. Where does the thought comes from?

Think about an experience you are planning for. Where does the thought comes from?

4)      Represent your mental-emotional energy about past, present, and future

Now if you were to represent your mental-emotional energy about past, present, and future, how will it look like? For example, some would represent them as coins or others would say they are like balloons or bubbles. How would you like to represent them?

5)      Reallocating mental-emotional energy percentage in the past, present and future.

Now, how will you re-allocate your mental-emotional energy in your timeline so that you spend most of the time in the present during performing a certain task?

How much you will allocate now to the past, present, and future?

6)      Quality check.

How is that for you? So as you imagine moving forward in life with this in mind, what is changing? What does it mean to you to live this way?

Does it serve you well? Do you want to keep it?

7)      Meta-stating living in the present with empowering resources

What resources would you like to hold in mind to support you living in the present when you are performing or engaging in an activity? (Menu List: creative thinking, self-esteem,  focus, clarity…etc)

8)      Future pace and install

v  Many thanks for Dr. L. Michael Hall for his valuable feedback and support in writing this pattern.