Living And Learning In The Moment

My job as a Certified Therapeutic Coach® and facilitator is to guide people to a point where they can choose to live in the moment. A point where they realize that asking “why” or “how” is not important or necessary because they experience both by simply staying present. Often we knowingly or unknowingly hold restrictions which prevent us from living in the moment. These restrictions are boxes that were created to structure our lives, and they are generally no longer necessary. I say generally because I myself, for example, have had indications that releasing mine all at once would not work well ecologically for me. And since I still haven’t let them all go I must assume the time is not yet right. However, I continue to allow the flow of consciously living in the moment more and more as the days move forward.

Early in my career, I experienced an interesting professional setback. I was striving to learn and do more in my practice by forcing the progression of myself, my talents, and my abilities. Thoughts heard inside my head were the likes of, “I know I can do that right now” or “I can do what she does, I’m just doing it with my own style.”

While these thoughts seemed true, I found that the harder I pushed, the foggier and more inconsistent my abilities became, particularly my intuitive sense. My reaction was to take this “reigning in” pretty hard, and I didn’t really understand why it happened. Oh sure, there were signs pointing to the reason, but I wasn’t ready to acknowledge and understand. Eventually, as I lessened the forward pressure, I did begin to understand. And it occurred to me that living in the moment can be described in a learning and experiential framework in this way.

When living in the moment, you are simultaneously learning by simply experiencing what is occurring. There are no thoughts of struggling, competing, or accomplishing. You stay present and realize what you are capable of by witnessing its manifestation and experiencing the sensations and emotions associated with it. And, you’re learning in a way that is fun, effortless, and often fascinating.

The implications of this type of learning are quite profound, especially for children, though not necessarily obvious to adults. Children live in the moment from the very beginning, until they are taught to do it differently. The boxes are put in place early for most kids, some of them seem unavoidable. They might include ideas about practicality, fiscal responsibility, social norms and expectations, productivity, and many others. Some of the boxes seem helpful in that they create a framework for living together and building our societies. Others are not so helpful. When the question “Why do we do that?” is answered with “Because we’ve always done that”, there is an arbitrary restriction placed on any options, choice, or flow associated with that action.

More and more educators are realizing that children and adults learn most effectively when exposed to an experience using all of their senses. Children, of course, instinctively know this and go about the business of learning in the most natural way right from the start. Hearing a bell sound as you see your own hand shaking a bright colored toy right before putting it in your own mouth is definitely “sensual” education. If encouraged and allowed, children will continue to learn in this experiential manner into adulthood and throughout their entire lives. My six year old attends a school employing a progressive education model based on experiential learning. She’s doing great, loves to learn, and she loves going to school!

For me, the fog lifted. My intuitive sense returned and grows stronger with each present moment I allow myself to enjoy. I still realize I’m capable of new things, both imagined and not, I just allow them to develop as I go along and be curious about what I’ll learn next. I do enjoy surprises!

It seems that “living in the moment” and “learning” go hand in hand, and in a sense are actually synonymous. So let’s change the “how” to “NOW” and the “why” to “WOW” and be transformed by what we experience in each moment!

Copyright © February, 2008 Eric Strodthoff. All Rights Reserved.