This moment is a blessing

I recently watched a movie about a man who can time travel to the past to change his mistakes and create the life he wants to lead.  By the end of the movie, the man has decided to no longer go to the past and change anything; that life in this moment with all the ups and downs; successes and failures; is exactly what it needs to be.  During these turbulent times, when I find myself looking to the past to fun adventures I’ve experienced or looking ahead to when I can go on vacation to another country again, it is challenging to be truly in the present moment.  Buddha teaches to “be where you are, otherwise you will miss your life”.  I am reminded that the here and now is the only life that’s real and living through these unprecedented times, I get to fully experience what will one day be in the history books.  That includes all the uncertainty, joy, anger, boredom, isolation, excitement, and dozens of other emotions I’ve been feeling from one moment to the next.  However, over the past several months, one of the places I have been truly in the present is when I am coaching.  It is fulfilling and engaging to live in the here and now with coaching clients so they can experience each moment; becoming fully aware of what’s important to them during challenging times and making commitments to how they want to be in the world moving forward.   So, I leave you (and my own wandering from the present) one more teaching from Buddha “every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind.  The goal is to find it”.