This post is something that’s been on my mind for a while. Much of the last 16 months, in fact.

I think for many of us, pandemic times were something we kept wishing we could press the fast forward button on, and just get to the other side already. We sat locked in our houses, venturing out only for fearful masked walks and errands, and spent our time dreaming about a future time that would look totally different from the reality of today.

And truly, I think the power of our own imagination is what kept us going through many of the tough moments and relentless stagnation of the past year. It’s important to dream about the future, to get clarity on what you want, to figure out what’s working and what isn’t in the present. But I think there’s a flip side to this, when we rely too much on our imagination to serve as an escape from our current circumstances. And I think when we do that, we risk missing the gifts that are right here for us, right now.

I have a lot of things in my life that are, shall we say, in the works right now. And that feels really really good after spending the past year feeling like I was frozen in time with no possibility of ever moving forward. Now, I feel as though I am on the brink of many changes and transitions that are slowly beginning to unfold and certain things I previously hardly dared to dream about are now feeling a whole lot more possible and realistic.

Yet on the outside, my life still looks largely the same, mostly because of circumstances outside my control and also because big changes take time. And yet, I’m finding that as all these things are beginning to feel closer and more tangible, I’m feeling that much more impatient to just skip ahead and BE THERE ALREADY.

I have a feeling many of you will relate.

And yet I also know I don’t want to think of the next few months as filler before the really exciting things happen. Because exciting events and changes and all that are wonderful, but life is about so much more than those big peaks and 360 turns. And I don’t want to miss the small, simple gifts of the present moment by constantly spending my time wishing I was in the future.

Perhaps most importantly, I know what it feels like to be gripped by nostalgia after a period in your life ends because you realize you didn’t fully enjoy it or experience it while you were there. And that realization and regret never feels great.

Despite how un-ideal certain things are right now, I know there are many things that I will profoundly miss in the future, and I want to make sure I take this time to fully experience them before they become distant memories.

 

And of course this is hard to do. It requires the conscious choice to BE HERE, even when it’s not all rosy, and to let go of future-tripping as an escape mechanism. It requires a whole lot of honesty and resilience and trust. Trust that by making the choice to be fully present now, I am in fact setting myself up for a much more satisfying and aligned future. That whatever is happening to me in this period is preparing me for the magic to come. That as easy as it would be to bypass whatever’s going on now and rush through it to the next thing, doing so would be doing future me a disservice.

It comes back to this simple truth that I keep coming up against.

 

You’re not going to be satisfied by the destination if you never stopped to enjoy the journey.

 

Now of course, this is all much easier said than done.

Presence is not my natural state of being. I am someone who spends a LOT of time in her head, which means that my mind is constantly racing on a whole medley of topics that have little to no basis in what’s happening right in front of me. I also have a long history of avoiding feeling my emotions by either numbing out or distracting myself with control-based behaviors. But I’ve worked a lot over the past few years on becoming more comfortable with presence and also learning to lean into it particularly in times when I most want to slip out of it.

So this post is just me sharing some of what I’ve found works to help me return to presence, particularly when I’m feeling impatient and excited for the future (like right now!).

 

Find or create pockets of joy right where you are

Sometimes when we pedestal the future to a large extent, the present can really pale in comparison. When the things we see in our mind’s eye appear so much better than our current reality, it can be really difficult to notice or appreciate the things that are really good right now.

The thing I love about joy is that it isn’t actually dependent on external circumstances at all. Rather than just a response to an external stimulus (i.e. happiness, anger, disappointment), joy is more of a choice.

You can decide to notice and appreciate what is in front of you, or you can take it for granted. You can choose to do something kind for yourself and intentionally elevate your mood when you’re feeling down, or you can embody a victim mentality where you put all your energy into decrying the various things going wrong.

For some people, finding and choosing joy comes more naturally than for others. But it is my belief that this skill can be practiced and improved on, by simply having the intention to orient yourself toward joy and to be more aware of when it shows up. My Joy Diaries series is ALL about this — finding those pockets of joy in simple, everyday things – things like a delicious home-cooked (or restaurant) meal, a workout that makes your body feel amazing and strong, a podcast episode or song that really hits, a book or movie that lifts your mood, a friend hang-out that makes you feel so seen and rejuvenated…

 

Because the reality of it is if we don’t set that intention to really look for and notice the joy in the everyday, we’ll miss those little moments. We’ll take them for granted and focus instead on the myriad of things that are going wrong or are spiraling out of our control. But your perception of joy in your life IS in your control, and once you understand that and truly begin to prioritize joy in your life. everything else begins to flow. You are able to make better more conscious choices, and you find that you’re much more resilient in the face of challenging times.

And if you need a bit of help or inspiration in the joy department, here are a few simple ways I add intentional joy to my day:

Enjoying a really good cup of coffee, watching a funny video, listening to a conversational or inspirational podcast (like Gal Pals, The Lively Show, or now We Can Do Hard Things), texting a sweet thoughtful message to my boyfriend or a friend, taking myself on a little adventure walk, cooking or baking something delicious, and listening to music that makes me feel good.

And if you need some more inspiration, definitely sign up for my Joy Diaries newsletter, which is essentially biweekly ever-changing joy lists delivered right to your inbox where I share some simple things that brought me joy in the past few weeks. It’s all good vibes in there. 🙂

 

Use the now to go deeper into your experience

What I mean by this is sometimes what we need to do when we find ourselves overcome with impatience for the future is add as many pockets of joy as we can into the present, so we can start enjoying our life more right now, even before anything has changed.

And other times, particularly when things are REALLY hairy and there’s a lot of hard stuff coming up and all you want to do is escape ALL of it…what you really need to do is lean in. Lean into the sadness, the pain, the anxiety, the fear, the discomfort. Lean into the not knowing and not understanding.

I think my biggest lesson of the past year revolved around this.

I used to FREAK OUT when things got hard. I used to think something was WRONG when I wasn’t feeling super happy all the time, or when conflicts would pop up with people I love, or when I had trouble dialing into that joy I talked about earlier. And of course I’d try to pretend everything was fine.

Which meant a lot of avoidance, numbing, and generally being dishonest with myself. But all that led to was feeling totally disconnected from myself, from my relationships, and from the things that matter to me. It was living life on autopilot, where I was generally “fine” but I wasn’t thriving in the least. Still, I used to think this low-grade numb state was better than feeling all the intense negative emotions I so wanted to escape.

Until I realized that my life was conspicuously lacking that spark I’d always worked so hard to cultivate. And that no matter how hard I tried to find it, joy and magic felt totally elusive to me for the first time in my life.

 

Over time, and lots of personal growth work, I learned that I couldn’t selectively avoid feelings and that by shutting myself off from the lows in life, I was also preventing myself from experiencing the highs. And that this intensity, this discomfort, this messiness is actually what makes a really full life.

 

I also realized that it was only by staying present and making decisions from a conscious intentional place NOW that I could craft a future that matched the one I was envisioning. And perhaps most frustratingly, that the future wasn’t magically going to be devoid of all hard things, particularly if I never took the time to work through the hard things of the past. I know I use this quote all the time, but Dumbledore truly is my most trusty source of wisdom. 😉

“Numbing the pain for a while will only make it worse when you finally feel it.”

So how do you go deep?

 

Turn on some sad tunes (Olivia Rodrigo is great for this), go for a long walk or drive, journal and free-write everything on your mind, channel your feelings into an art form like drawing, painting, singing, do an intentional yoga flow (this one is awesome for this), focus your attention on the physical sensations of your emotions. Oftentimes when we create space for our emotions in this way and are really intentional about feeling them, we uncover something below the surface.

Like maybe that anger was actually just fear that the person you care about would leave, or the sadness was really just exhaustion and burnout from overworking.

Sometimes we wish we could skip over all the hard stuff and jump ahead, but that would also mean missing out on a whole lot of important data points that will help you craft your most authentic and aligned future.

So allow yourself to feel everything that comes up. I promise it won’t swallow you whole, and it won’t last forever. You’ll be amazed at how resilient you actually are and how much stronger you feel when you come out the other side.

Moving through hard times with full presence and awareness is how we get the clarity we are looking for to build our most authentic and aligned future.

 

Think about the things you want in the future and how they will make you feel. Then try to channel and cultivate those feelings now

This is one of my absolute favorite practices, particularly when I’m finding myself dissatisfied with present circumstances and future tripping a lot. If you’re familiar with manifestation, this is the core idea and process there too. Essentially, you want to hone in on what exactly you are looking forward to in the present and see if you can cultivate some of that right here in the present. Sometimes that means making active changes in your environment and starting to bring some of those dreams to light, but other times you don’t need to do anything other than harnessing specific emotions.

Here is the process. You think about that future you’re so excited for. You imagine in detail what it would feel like. The happiness and fulfillment from being in a place that feels really right, the purpose and drive that comes from setting aligned goals and taking active steps to reach them, the joy, satisfaction, contentment, pleasure, excitement, whatever it may be.

And then, you bring those feelings into the now. This might seem impossible if you’ve never done this before or if you’re finding yourself in a pretty low place. It also may seem totally backwards. Most of us think of feelings as results of circumstances, and if circumstances are undesirable, we resign ourselves to feeling more negative emotions. Like I mentioned in the previous section, feeling those negative emotions is important, but there comes a point when you have pulled out the necessary lessons from your current emotional state and you can start consciously moving up and out of that space.

 

NOTE: This should ONLY be done after you’ve given enough space to the negative emotions that were asking to be felt.

 

So now you can start cultivating those emotions you want in several ways. You can practice what I talked about in the first section – finding joy in the now. You can also be really intentional about finding the various things in your life that are already facilitating those emotions you’re looking for, and focus your attention there.

For example, say you are feeling ready for a romantic relationship and are most looking forward to feeling seen and loved and cherished for who you are. You might be feeling frustrated by the conspicuous lack of a romantic connection in your current single state, but if you focus on those core feelings that you really want, you might find that you already have aspects of those in your close friend or familial relationships.

It’s obviously not totally the same, but by focusing on the version of what you want that is already yours, you can create more gratitude and contentment right where you are, which will help you stay present (and attract that thing you want in the future).

 

The key here is that you cannot go from a lack mindset straight to an abundance mindset. If you feel like everything sucks right now and you’re just waiting for things to happen that will make you feel better, even when those things do happen, you won’t actually notice or appreciate them.

So start training yourself to notice and appreciate them NOW (because they’re always there, even if they’re masquerading in an altered form) and watch as the more you feel those things, the more evidence shows up affirming that those things you want are already yours.

Then, even before that ideal future has come to fruition, you can find satisfaction right where you are. You’re still looking forward to the future, but you’re no longer wishing away the present. You trust the process and know you are right where you are supposed to be. And that’s a pretty great place to be. 🙂

 

 

And that’s all for today, loves! If you made it all the way here in this doozy of a post, can we be friends? 😉 LMK if this landed for all you future-trippers and comment below if you have any ways of staying present and enjoying the now when it’s not quite ideal.

Love you and talk soon! xx