This relevant article discusses some well-meaning spiritual tropes and shows how they can be harmful when misapplied. Especially to victims of abuse and other forms of trauma. Click here

By Alex Chapunoff, LMHC

​By now (pun intended?), you may have heard of “mindfulness” – living in the present instead of getting caught up in thoughts and feelings about past or future. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now is a modern classic and a great book. But recently I started wondering about the Power of Here – living in the present instead of getting caught up in thoughts and feelings about elsewhere. Working with space (Here) as opposed to time (Now).

​For most people, time is a more abstract quality than space; space is, or appears to be, more straightforward. So it could be an easier way for some to approach Presence.

​Tolle makes many references to living in the Here: occupying your body fully, feeling all your emotions as they are, paying close attention to everything your five senses receive – really seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. He just includes all this under the word Now.

Some writers and teachers refer to the Here-Now.

When you live in the Now, you check the mind’s tendency to think of past and future. When you live in the Here, you check its tendency to think of other places: the fantasies, memories, ruminations, and so forth, about other locations that keep you from attending to where you are: thus, you can stay present. Wherever you are, that’s the place to be. And you’re there (here) fully. Wherever you are is Here.

And you engage that place – being conscious, awake, present.

You are “in the building.”

The lights are on.

Your body is always in the Here, so this is about aligning mind with body so they work together, occupying the same space.

Here and Now complement one another, and living in the Here can make living in the Now that much more accessible.