The Transformational Power of Now

Growing up in the Southwest and having spent a great deal of my life outdoors interacting with the Dine', I experienced many different aspects of the spiritual dimensions of their culture. One of these was the practice of Navajo Sandpainting.

Navajo Sandpainting, also called dry paintings, are called "places where the gods come and go" in the Navajo language. They are used in curing ceremonies in which the gods' help is requested for harvests and healing. The figures in sand paintings are symbolic representations of a story in Navajo mythology. They depict objects like the sacred mountains where the gods live, or legendary visions, or they illustrate dances or chants performed in rituals.

The sandpainting’s are but one rite in a ceremonial. From the distinct set of paintings that belong to a specific chant, the chanter selects those that will best heal the patient, never using the entire repertoire of paintings on a single occasion. For example, in the two-night form of a chant, one sandpainting is made. In nine-night ceremonial the last four days would have sandpainting’s.

The sandpainting’s are extremely detailed and can take days to complete. More often than not, they will cover the entire floor of the dwelling where the ceremony will take place. Once the sandpainting is completed and after its sanctification, the patient sits on the painting while the chanter performs a ritual to enhance the absorption of the sandpainting’s healing power. Immediately afterward, the sand is gathered up, and the remains of the painting are taken outside to an area north of the Hogan, where they are scattered and returned to the earth. That moment has passed, and the NOW moves on. It’s a powerful lesson.

According to Navajo belief, a sandpainting heals because the ritual image attracts and exalts the Holy People; serves as a momentary pathway for the mutual exchange of illness and the healing power of the Holy People; identifies the patient with the Holy People it depicts; and creates a ritual moment of reality in which the patient and the supernatural dramatically interact, reestablishing the patient's correct relationship with the world of the Holy People

For the Navajo, the sandpainting is a dynamic, living, sacred entity that enables the patient to transform his or her mental and physical state by focusing on the powerful mythic symbols that re-create the chant way odyssey of the story’s protagonist, causing those events to live again in the present.

The performative power of sandpainting creation and ritual use reestablish the proper, orderly placement of the forces of life, thus restoring correct relations between the patient and those forces upon which the patient's spiritual and physical health depend. The sandpainting works its healing power by reestablishing the patient's sense of connectedness to all of life. Our western culture refers to this connectedness to all of life as, “Living in the Moment” or “The Art of Now.”

We live in the age of distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that your brightest future hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present. Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what's past. "We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence," We're always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm.

When we're at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don't appreciate the living present because our "monkey minds," vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.

Most of us don't undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and to "rest in stillness (i.e.) stop doing and focus on just being.

Living in the moment (also called mindfulness) is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. When you become mindful, you realize that you are not your thoughts; you become an observer of your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting your life go by without living it, you awaken to experience.

Cultivating an awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with a host of medical conditions. My own cardiologist told me that alleviating stress and spending a few minutes a day actively focusing on living in the moment will reduce the risk of heart disease.

Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.

Living in the moment involves a profound paradox: You can't pursue it for its benefits. That's because the expectation of reward launches a future-oriented mindset, which subverts the entire process. Instead, you just have to trust that the rewards will come. There are many paths to mindfulness, and at the core of each is a paradox. Ironically, letting go of what you want is the only way to get it.

Here are a few practical steps that have helped me with my journey.

To improve your performance, stop thinking about it (unselfconsciousness). "We are told, “Just let go and let yourself be in the moment." That's the first paradox of living in the moment: Thinking too hard about what you're doing actually makes you do worse. If you're in a situation that makes you anxious and focusing on your anxiety tends to heighten it. Focus less on what's going on in your mind and more on what's going on in the room, less on your mental chatter and more on yourself as part of something. To be most myself, I needed to focus on things outside myself, like the music or the people around me.

Once so engaged you will begin to see that mindfulness blurs the line between self and other. The profound truth is that when people are mindful, they're more likely to experience themselves as part of humanity, as part of a greater universe. By reducing self-consciousness, mindfulness allows you to witness the passing drama of feelings, social pressures, even of being esteemed or disparaged by others without taking their evaluations personally. Focusing on the present moment also forces you to stop overthinking. Being present minded takes away some of that self-evaluation and getting lost in your mind, we all know that in the mind is where we make the evaluations that beat us up.

Often, we're so trapped in thoughts of the future or the past that we forget to experience, let alone enjoy, what's happening right now. Why does living in the moment make people happier? Because most negative thoughts concern the past or the future. As Mark Twain said, "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." The hallmark of depression and anxiety is catastrophizing (worrying about something that hasn't happened yet and might not happen at all.) Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the future, and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying will begin so slip away. Of course, there is also the flip side of worrying, which is ruminating, or thinking bleakly about events in the past. Once again, if you press your focus into the now, rumination ceases. It forces you into the present, so you can't worry about things that aren't there.

Mindfulness boosts your awareness of how you interpret and react to what's happening in your mind. It increases the gap between emotional impulse and action. Focusing on the present reboots your mind so you can respond thoughtfully rather than automatically. Instead of lashing out in anger, backing down in fear, or mindlessly indulging a passing craving, you get the opportunity to say to yourself, "This is the emotion I'm feeling. How should I respond?" Mindfulness also increases self-control; since you're not getting thrown by threats to your self-esteem, you're better able to regulate your behavior. That's the other irony: Inhabiting your own mind more fully has a powerful effect on your interactions with others.

Mindfulness is the only intentional, systematic activity that is not about trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else. It is simply a matter of realizing where you already are. You can become mindful at any moment just by paying attention to your immediate experience. You can do it right now. What's happening this instant? Think of yourself as an eternal witness, and just observe the moment. What do you see, hear, smell? It doesn't matter how it feels, pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad. you roll with it because it's what's present; you're not judging it. And if you notice your mind wandering, bring yourself back.

Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're Here.

Post-script: In the Navajo language there is no word for religion, nor for art. The only word that could be used to describe both is "hózhó"- a word that defines the essence of Navajo or Diné philosophy. It encompasses beauty, order, and harmony, and expresses the idea of striving for balance. Every aspect of Navajo life, secular and spiritual, is related to hózhó. As humans we straddle the border between health and sickness, good and evil, happiness and sadness. We are always trying to gain harmony in life, preserve beauty, and find order again after balance has been disturbed. According to the Navajo worldview, the purpose of life is to achieve balance, in a continual cycle of gaining and retaining harmony.