Gerrit Gielen

Life always takes place in the present. Yet we often rush right past it. We worry about tomorrow, grieve over yesterday, or fantasize about how things could be. But what if the present is exactly what you need? What if every experience you encounter right now fits where you currently stand in your growth?

The present is never random. It brings you precisely those lessons, encounters and challenges that you need at this point in your life to move forward. When you surrender to it fully, a natural rhythm emerges. You stop fighting what is and start moving with what comes. That is the essence of inner peace and true growth. When you don’t go along with this rhythm, your growth stagnates. You miss the lessons that are meant for you right now.

The inner child who never left

Who truly lives in the present? A child. A child becomes completely absorbed in play, in the sensation of the moment, without worrying about the future or the past. It lives with its whole being. We carry the ability to be fully present within us by nature.

As we grow up, we learn to suppress that child within ourselves. The achievement-driven society, expectations, responsibility and fear take over. We trade our natural presence for mental projections: “What if it goes wrong?”, “What do I still have to achieve?”, “Who am I if I don’t do enough?”

Fear pulls our awareness away from the present. The inner child falls silent and hides. In doing so, we lose contact with life itself. It is replaced by an idea of how life is supposed to be and we as grown ups are supposed to be.

Back to your childlike self

To truly arrive in the present, it is not enough to simply be “mindful.” We have to dig deeper. We have to learn to live from our inner child once again. Knowing that an inner child still lives somewhere within us is not enough; it has to become our center again. That means: rediscovering your sense of wonder. Your curiosity. Your ability to become fully absorbed in something without constantly thinking about what comes next.

But a child can only be free and unselfconscious if it feels safe and loved. It needs a mother who cherishes it and a father who inspires and protects it. Where do you find that love if your parents are no longer there, or are themselves so full of fear and worry that they could not give that love, and perhaps never did?

Your cosmic parents

Accept that this: love does exist, and that as an adult you can find it again, or perhaps for the first time, on a deeper and more universal level.

Let the Earth be your mother. Feel how she always carries you, how she nourishes you with her beauty, her stillness and her infinite patience. Go out into nature often. Sit against a tree. Listen to the wind. Let yourself be enveloped by her unconditional love. The Earth is always present. She does not judge. She receives you exactly as you are. Mother Earth is alive, and she loves you.

Let the Heavens, with the sun, the stars and the infinite universe, be your father. Look up at night and feel the vastness. That same infinity lives within you too. The stars remind you of your own divinity, the sun of your inner fire and strength. In that fatherly energy you find guidance, inspiration and the trust that everything is exactly as it should be.

When you open yourself to this motherly and fatherly love, which has always been all around you, something magical happens. Your inner child dares to come out again. It feels safe. It dares to play again, to marvel, to feel and to be.

Feel the love and become the child you always were once more.

And then you are back in the present.

Reading the book of your life in the right order

Being in the present does not mean standing still. It means following your path in the right order. You experience the book of your life as it is meant to be read: page by page, chapter by chapter, without constantly flipping ahead or going back to passages you have already read.

Your life then unfolds in a natural, flowing way. Decisions become easier. Synchronicity increases. You feel alive again, rather than feeling lived.

Being in the present means following your own path: not the path others have laid out for you, not the path of fear or expectation, but the path that unfolds beneath your feet as you walk.

The present does not wait. It has always been here.

© Gerrit Gielen

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