Do you ever wish you could go back to the simplicity of being a little child once again? Children seem unburdened by all the worries of finances, aging, relationships, schedules, deadlines, and taxes. They are more concerned about getting to play with their toys or getting their favorite foods. They tune out the cares of the world and just focus on a few simple things. We envy that when the cares of the world seem heavy and we wish we could tune them out.
Children then learn…
To take on responsibilities, and that simple focus fades away. They are taught to think about more than just the present moment. While they must learn to consider the future, to plan, to delay gratification, and to put aside simple primal desires, they are also learning to worry when plans go wrong and their future expectations are dashed. They were once focusing on just the present, but they learn to consider the future. They are broadening their focus, but they are living less in the moment. Well, we were once them. Is it necessary that we become burdened with worry as we take on the mantle of adulthood?
Focus is key
We talk a lot about multitasking. The more tasks we attempt to do simultaneously, the weaker our focus is on any single one of them. When we are attempting to hold a serious conversation with someone, what do we think when that person starts texting on a cell phone? We figure we are either being ignored or at least are not being given much attention. That’s because we know that attempted multitasking means poor attention is given to our conversation.
Meanwhile we try to focus on some task or work project that requires concentration, and we realize our focus is poor. Our thoughts wander and we can’t crank through the project as we attempt to pull our focus back to the task at hand. We end the day tired, yet we can’t get our minds to slow down so we can get to sleep. We realize that we have come to a daily pattern of worrying about the future, regretting the past, and being unable to focus on the present. Then we wish we could be simple again, like a child, and shed all those cares and worries.
Maybe we recognize that we need to focus on the present, but don’t know how to do that, so we turn to practices meant to narrow our focus. We may go as far as using drugs to numb our fears and worries, or to artificially enhance our concentration. We may shun illicit drugs, but maybe there are prescription options. Or we might wisely shun drug options, but we may want to take a natural approach, looking to meditation, mindfulness and prayer. In all cases, we are attempting to tune out negative distractions and just focus in the present.
The time is always “now” — that’s where we live
What we are attempting to do is stop the worries and fears which are past and future based and substitute good thoughts which are based in the present. Even if we focus on a good, anticipated event in the future, we pull it into our present attention with our imagination. We can’t really live at any time except the present, and when our thoughts are of the past or future, we place them in the theatre of our imagination in our present. We are not capable of true multitasking, nor are we capable of living at any time except the present. If we “live in the moment” we are focusing on one thing currently — that is our natural state. When we do so, we are in sync with the way we have been created. For a moment at least, the cares of the world recede. For a time our brains are sending signals of peace and health throughout our bodies. This harmony doesn’t immediately diminish when we return to our world of tasks and responsibilities, which is why even little moments of prayer or meditation are valuable to our health. The more, the healthier — but we can’t meditate throughout the day, can we?
Let’s look at what happens when we meditate on any good thing, including prayer which is a focus upon God our Father speaking to our hearts. Let’s define meditation as any practice which involves intense focus — it’s really about living in the moment, soaking it in and focusing all your thoughts and senses on it. The more you refine your thoughts that you engage, the more you open up to the moment and give up everything else, the more benefit you will receive from it. Seeing a beautiful sunrise, being on a mountain top viewing the beauty of the natural landscape, being so intensely in the activity — that would involve this kind of focus that pushes everything else away. The past is irrelevant, and the future is ignored — your focus is on one special thing or event right now. Your conscious senses are tuned only to your focus. These things change your brain chemistry in unique ways: regular focusing on the moment can increase grey matter density in the hippocampus memory center, reduce activity in the amygdala (fear center), and alter the default mode network (a network in your brain that is mainly active during resting states). Neurotransmitters such as GABA, dopamine, and serotonin increase, and cortisol decreases. These changes lead to improved memory, reduced stress and anxiety, and enhanced focusing ability.
Research
Many high-quality research studies show the neurological impacts of such in-the-moment focus. In one study published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, researchers conducted an eight-week study on the impact of such practice on gray matter density in humans. Over the eight weeks they showed clear increases in gray matter against the control group when examined with brain imaging (MRI). “Exploratory whole brain analyses identified significant increases in gray matter concentration in the posterior cingulate cortex, temper-parietal junction, and the cerebellum.”(1)
Another study from researchers at McGill University, published in the American Journal of Human Biology, looks at two apparently opposite spiritual practices — one quiet and contemplative, and the other very emotional and expressive — and find the same basic mental processes being engaged with both. They noted the same three mental phases in each: a phenomenon they call the Attention, Arousal and Release Spiral. Essentially these are phases of deepening focus and de-tuning from the world. These led to a sense of joy, effortless attention, and a feeling of surrender.(2)
Praying constantly
We are bound by time and three dimensions of space except in one place: our minds. When we release time and space, we may become unaware of them. Burdens fade. But deep meditation is hard to maintain in the real world and those burdens return. Schedules can’t be ignored, and other people need our attention. But that doesn’t mean we must return fully to the cares of the world. Our minds manage to amplify those into fears, worries, and doubts. We can practice “living in the moment”: intentionally thinking on the thankfulness for being alive and what a precious gift life is, and bringing our thoughts back to the present. We worry about things that have not only happened yet, and probably won’t happen. And in worrying, we burden our minds which translate those thoughts through the brain to our entire bodies. That draws down our health, and for what?
Paul the Apostle encouraged us to “pray continually”. That doesn’t mean we must closet ourselves away from the world constantly, but rather we are to keep living in the moment, be thankful for the life that God gives us each and every moment. Life is a gift and that gift is this moment in time — when you separate from all the past and future distractions, the moment is always good because it is life. Live in the good moments. When bad circumstances occur, realize that they are predominantly still projections of past and future requiring you to get more fully in the moment.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
The McGill University studies showed one thing is clear: there are many ways to get into the moment, but result is the same — a deep sense of love, joy, and peace.
The first step in the study was termed “attention”, meaning concentrating on the moment, not the future or past. The second step, “arousal” — this meaning a connection to your heart, to your spirit. The third step, “release”, meaning completely letting go of the future thinking because you’re more engaged in your heart-spirit connection.
As the studies have shown, when you train yourself to live in the moment you increase hippocampus brain memory cells, you decrease amygdala fear-based neurons, neurotransmitters balance, and the stress hormone cortisol decreases.
Stop and smell the roses
We’ve all heard this familiar phrase, but yet do not practice what it says. Live a life that appreciates the simple things — fully engage them each moment. This is the childlike state as children play on the playground. They are fully in the moment, oblivious to everything around them, they have no future, they have no past in the moment, they are just discovering on their adventure.
How does an adult get into a childlike moment?
By purposely letting go of future thoughts and past memories and putting all one’s attention on what is present at hand in the moment. Remember when you learned to drive a car. Were you in the past, the future, or the moment? This is obvious: you were fully in the moment because you were excited about the activity, but also afraid of the danger if you took your focus off the moment.
Childlike versus adult moments
Children don’t need to own anything — they fully enjoy the experience that is before them. For example, if a child sees a butterfly, they run after it, they laugh and play as they follow the butterfly — there’s enjoyment in the butterfly moment because there’s no future, no past, no need to own anything, to save anything, to store anything. Whereas the adult, when they see the butterfly, they enjoy the butterfly but immediately go into the future — they want to keep the butterfly memory so they try to take a picture of it or catch it in a bottle and then pin it on a board and frame it — but all that thought takes them out of the moment. So to be in the moment there has to be no thought of being out of the moment because that’s a future thought.
The moment is self generating if you just remain in it.
The question remains — how do I do this in the real world when I have a job responsibilities, deadlines, etc.? Everything in your life is secondary to the moment because the moment is life. Without the moment you have nothing.
Can you work a job being in the moment? Of course: this means being fully engaged, not distracted by deadlines and demands; of putting yourself 100% into what is that hand. What you will find is that you are more productive and more time efficient because when you fully engage a task without thinking of future tasks, the task is completed much more quickly. So you go task by task, being fully in the moment with each one of them, not thinking about the next one while you’re on the present one. This is how the most successful people achieve so much. They do it moment by moment.
When the apostle Paul said pray continually, what he was saying is: stay fully in the moment, listening to your heart, listening to your God your Father speak to your spirit. He only speaks in the moment.
You can do this anywhere, anytime. This can be at work. This can be at play. This can be on the drive or train ride home. This can be while you’re shopping at the grocery store.
Jesus stated it clearly when he said do not worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has enough trouble of itself. What was Jesus really saying? Stay in the moment, stay in the life, stay in the light, stay in the truth of the moment.
Stay in the place where time doesn’t exist, where physicality fades away, and you are left with true life — the most important reality.
(1) Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, Congleton C, Yerramsetti SM, Gard T, Lazar SW. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Res. 2011 Jan 30;191(1):36-43. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.08.006. Epub 2010 Nov 10. PMID: 21071182; PMCID: PMC3004979. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3004979/
(2) Brahinsky J, Mago J, Miller M, Catherine S, Lifshitz M. The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release: A Comparative Phenomenology of Jh?na Meditation and Speaking in Tongues. Am J Hum Biol. 2024 Dec;36(12):e24189. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.24189. Epub 2024 Dec 9. PMID: 39653690; PMCID: PMC11645872. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39653690/
