The Power of Now & The Power of Maybe

I have been reading an awesome book called "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle. While there are things I do not agree with completely in the book, I am open to discovering truth where I can. And having spent a great deal of my life living in pain and fear some of his insights have been eye opening to say the least.

I have debated about sharing this with parents of Preemies because the NICU experience is so traumatic that it is neither the time or the place to make personal growth changes. BUT...I think this would have helped our family, especially me, if we had known about it so I share it with you now under that premise. However, if you think you are in no place to be given advice then do not read on. But if you are in pain and you are looking for something that might help then this could be of benefit to you.

In this book Tolle teaches a concept called "The Power of Now" and it is actually a separate book he wrote, which I have not read. the power of now is not letting your thoughts get carried away with what is going to happen in the future or being too concerned with what has happened in the past. If we can sort of isolate our emotions and focus on the present then it causes less stress to our bodies. Less stress = less illness, wear and tear and loss of energy. Unhappy thoughts create negative energy which tricks our body into believing we are in distress and the same chemicals that are released, for example, when we are being attacked are the same chemicals that are released when we just "think" we are being attacked. The brain doesn't know the difference and neither does the body! So if we spend a great deal of time just thinking that everything is horrible then the chemicals in our bodies are release accordingly, causing us extra stress, and in many cases, doing us harm.

So how do we gain control of our thoughts and not let them run away with us? The answer is so simple that you might think it is kind of dumb...I did, until I tried it.

Say you get some bad news and your mind just gets carried away. Your emotions run crazy and you have really worked yourself into a knot. Are you really doing anyone any good in that state? No! It is especially not good for you, your family members or your baby, all of whom feel the stress you are carrying around. We all know that getting all worked up helps no one and now that we also know it can actually be harmful it might be worth it just to TRY something new. Right?

Try this...the next time you feel your emotions run away with you - STOP - and ask yourself 'At this moment what do I feel?" Identify the feeling and give it a name. Now instead of wanting something different ask yourself, "Is it possible for you to completely accept what you are feeling right now?" Notice the emotion, name it and accept it as "what is." You cannot argue with what is. And if you try to it will cause you to suffer. It might sound strange, but if you don't mind being unhappy, what happens to the unhappiness? Are you curious to find out? I would be interested to hear what you discover - to see if your experiences are similar to mine. What happened to me is that when I didn't mind being unhappy the unhappiness had no power over me. I stopped crying and saw my situation clearly. The unhappiness didn't go away but it ceased to have an uncontrollable emotional hold on me. My mind calmed, my heart rate slowed and the crying ceased! Nothing had changed but my outlook. Tolle calls this the power of now. This mean to be completely in the hear and now - the dimension of The Presence.

He goes on to say that we have intense emotional responses to things because we attach whatever our current emotion is to our unhappy story. Our unhappy story is all the bad things that have happened to us. If we have some bit of bad news we heap this bad news on top of all the bad news we have ever had. He say, "Emotion in itself is not unhappiness. Only emotion plus our unhappy story is unhappiness." In other words, if we can disconnect the present emotion from all of the other pain in our past it makes the present emotion much more tolerable and easier to handle. To me this was powerful! And it really works too!

The other thing that helped me so much was "The Power of Maybe." The bible says, "The wisdom of the world is folly with God." What is the wisdom of this world? It begins with thoughts. Thinking isolates a situation or event and calls it good or bad. Labeling it like that isolates it and it becomes a fragment of the whole. This fragment is an illusion, but it seems very real when you are trapped in it. But we know that nothing that happens in our lives happens in isolation. When we isolate the events of our lives and call them "good' or "bad" we fail to see the whole in the divine plan of God.

This concept is illustrated in the story of a wise man who won and expensive car in the lottery. His friends and family were very happy for him and came to celebrate. "isn't that great! they said. "You are so lucky." The man smiled and said, "Maybe." For a few weeks he enjoyed driving the car. Then one day a drunk driver crashed into his new car at the intersection and he ended up in the hospital with multiple injuries. His family and friends came to see him and said, "That is really unfortunate." Again the man smiled and said, "Maybe." While he was still in the hospital, one night there was a mudslide and his house fell into the sea. Again his friends and family came the next day to see him and said, "Weren't you lucky to have been here in the hospital." Again he said, "Maybe."

Tolle explains,"This wise man's "maybe" signifies a refusal to judge anything that happens. Instead of judging it he accepts it...he knows that often it is impossible for the mind to understand what place or purpose a seemingly random event has in the tapestry of the whole."

In the NICU you will find that everyday you arrive not knowing what events will happen. We all have seen tragedy and miracles ebb and flow during this time that is often described as a rollercoaster. Imagine if you could get off the rollercoaster and live in "the power of maybe." It won't change the outcome and no one knows what that outcome will be expect God. But it can change the journey! It can allow us to have less fear and more faith, less pain and more happiness, less stress and more joy!

I wish I had known this when Elliot was in the hospital! But I do know it now. Elliot is now three and he is a living, breathing miracle. This fact lets me know that all of those days spent in fear were a real waste of time and energy. Now our family has moved on to other challenges and trials. These days trails seem like they come in waves and the stress seems overwhelming sometimes and never ending. I used to live life something like this, "When this or that is happens, then I will be happy." If we always wait for things to get better to be happy it will never come because life is a series of challenges and when one is over another appears in it's place. I have learned, after 50 years, that happiness is in the hear and now if we only know how to find it and recognize it! One way we can learn to recognize it by using the "power of now" and the "power of maybe." Let me know how it works for you...