The Power of Now. A mental health article by Keren Obara.
Today I listened to chapter one of Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now.” He talked about the defining moment when he spotted what I have come to call; “The Voice.” Something that speaks as though it is you, but it is not really you. I saw the same aspect in My Mind and Me by Selena Gomez, when she was crying because she thought she did horribly in a concert, and yet she had done extremely well (love you Selena).
I then remembered a documentary I watched of sweet Miss JK Rowling. She explained that when she went to see the Harry Potter movie for the first time, she was utterly afraid, hoping that the producers had done it the way she envisioned it.
I began to recall numerous instances in my life where I witnessed people behave in odd ways, while they were victim to what Florence Scovel Shinn called, The Cruel Task Master. The evil voice in the land of Egypt, according to her, that kept the people of Israel in bondage. Bondage- that is the word. To be under the thralls of the negative voice feels like being tied up, suffocated almost. This is when the pain body comes up, and a human who is usually reasonable acts in ways unreasonable from a place of woundedness. Many a marriage has fallen apart, too many a friendship and worse, too many individuals have lost themselves to these negative voices and pain bodies.
Solution:
In his book, Eckhart Tolle mentions that when one begins to spot the voice and “observe the thinker”, that is the first step towards healing.
My oh my, does it feel liberating! To simply observe the thought, and not identify with it. To question one’s own mind as to whether what it is saying is true. This dwindles the cruel task master, giving way for a quieter mind and a liberated individual.
The power of now is that no matter what the future holds, or what happened in the past, the present moment is the only significant factor, as there is control in the present moment. Therefore, a human can create what they want to create, and do what they want to do, given they get rid of fear and negative voices. Because fear and negative voices only hold one back.
