Live In The Present

If you are feeling disoriented and out-of-sync, maybe you just need to slow down, says Paula Horan

The first step towards self-healing of either emotional imbalances or physical ailments is to slow down, so that we get a chance to perceive what is really happening in our lives. We can then better observe and understand our inner state of being, for it is mirrored in our outer situation in life. Once we understand this, we can take responsibility and change whatever that is bothering us.

Illness often results when we are too busy or overwrought to pay attention to signals that point to where our true priorities lie. The causal factors of a common cold are a case in point. The two main reasons for 'catching' a cold, for instance, could be that you are carrying a lot of grief or anger and have suppressed your need to cry or that you have submitted your body to too much stress — to a deluge of toxins such as air pollutants, alcohol, drugs (including unnecessary over-the-counter and prescription drugs) and too much or unhealthy food.

These together with excess stress and lack of rest can exhaust the immune system; it now needs to purge itself.

Go slow now

When you slow down, it becomes possible to be in touch with your feelings again, the very ones you were ignoring in the first place. The neurotically busy pace of your lifestyle can make you lose touch with your genuine feelings. When you can barely keep your head out of water, it is easy to not notice what is really going on. When you are speeding along like a rat on a skateboard, there is no time to reflect and feel.

When you slow down, you also begin to get the first inkling of peace — the silent power with you all the time. In ordinary circumstances, we simply do not notice this — neither our innate peace or our own power, because we are never fully present or living life in the 'now'. If you are always engaged in mind games, worrying or planning, you are bound to suffer. In such a state of mind, you overlook your existing

reality — the eternal moment, the now, the inner joy.