Eckhart Tolle explains how most problems exist only in your mind, not in the present moment. He teaches that challenges are real, but the suffering around them comes from mental constructs about the past and future. The key is learning to stay present.
Be aware of the mental baggage. If you're still from time to time imposing mental baggage on a situation, be aware of the narrative that goes through your head referring to people or situations or your so called life. People have all kinds of judgments about my life. And when the moment people think my life heaviness descends upon them because, oh God, what is, how, what's going to happen and what has happened. Oh, so that they can look to the past, they can have regrets, a few pleasant memories, but it's all gone now anyway. And then the future is so uncertain of my life, where is it all going to go? My life? Of course not realizing that on that level, my life is a mental construct. Because the absolute reality of what your life is, is this moment is your life. Your life is never, not this moment. The rest is a mental construct. Now, it may well be that you cannot live entirely without mental constructs. Of course you will have mental constructs, but you do not need to be trapped in your mental constructs and you do not need to derive your entire sense of identity, your entire sense of who you are from the mental constructs in your mind. And that is a liberation. So your life is now. And this is why I believe it's in my first book. There's your life situation. Normally, what's called my life is my life situation. All the stuff makes up my life and my life situation is I have to remember it, I have to think about it, otherwise there is no life situation. So my life situation is a mental construct in the head, that's okay, I have memories, I can't get rid of that, nor do I want to or need. You don't need to get rid of it. But you recognize that there is, there is my life situation, but there is also my life now. My life is now. And my life situation exists in time and it exists in the head. And on that left, that is the personality. That's where it lives. And that's fine, it continues to live, but I don't need to be trapped in that anymore. And more and more you come, you step into the nowness of now and live your life fully now instead of being prevented from living your life fully now by excessive identification with the narrative, excessive identification with your life situation in your head and thinking, oh, how is it ever going to change? What about this moment? This moment? I'm not interested in that. I want to get somewhere else. Where I want to get somewhere where my life situation is going to be better. What about now? And so and then if you really open Yourself to now you realize, actually, and this is an incredible realization for people who think they have lots of problems, which is most people, you cannot have a problem at this moment. You cannot have a problem now. Challenge. Yes, you can be challenged by some situation. Now, there could be. There could be a grizzly bear escaped from Grouse Mountain coming into here and suddenly attack me. No, that would. That's not even a problem. Because the problem needs time. It's a challenge in this moment. I wouldn't say now I really have a problem. It's a challenge. And so either. Nobody can predict how you respond to a challenge. I might either play dead, run away, or who knows? Or make friends with it. Coming to the present moment. And so do I. Yes, there are situations in your life that you need to deal with, or you might have to wait some time before you can deal with them, or there's nothing you can do about them. That's all true. But the magical question you can ask yourself many times in your life is, especially when you're burdened by problems, do I have a problem right now? You may be ill. Yes. You might feel a disability, you might feel a weakness, you might feel dysfunction on a physical level. That's the fact of. What is. This does not become a problem until your mind gets in there and starts constructing a story around it. So you can. Can you be in the present moment and go into it? What problem do I actually have now? Well, now. Well, I mean, I have to. I have to. The moment you go to problems, you go into the future. I have to. Well, tomorrow I'm meeting that guy and I have to think about what I'm going to say to him. And then my lawyer has to see him about my divorce. Not mine. But it's just an example. I have to declare bankruptcy tomorrow. That's a huge problem. My whole. My company, not mine, by the way. A huge problem. Yeah, I have to think. But do you have a problem at this moment? What? Yeah, I have to think this moment. I don't see it. I don't see the bankruptcy anywhere. Well, that's strange. All I see is there's the lights and there's flower and there's. I can feel myself breathing. So the bankruptcy is also a mental construct because in the moment, I take action when it comes tomorrow, which is not tomorrow, it'll be now. Then I take action. I'd say this. I sign that paper, and then I do that, and then I do that, and then I look at my bank statement and it will say zero and Again, just looking at that is not a problem until your mind. I'm not saying take no action. Action may be necessary, but it's not a problem. It's only the desire of the egoic mind to create problems by dwelling unnecessary on situations that creates a problem. And the ego grows. The more problems you have, the bigger the ego gets me. There are many human beings who consider themselves a problem to be solved. That's their identity. And many people go to a therapist with that underlying assumption. There's nothing wrong with therapists. Therapists do great work if they are connected with a deeper level. And they go to therapist with the assumption that I am a problem that needs to be solved, that's my identity. But of course, when the therapy really comes to the crunch, they resist it because they are so that it derives their identity from their problem. So they don't want to let go because the who am I without that? Oh, okay. Better stay in my problems. So what problem do I have at this moment? None. Never a problem. You could have pain. Yes, it's pain. Not to be underestimated, but it's not a problem. But most things that make people happy is not. It's not even pain. It's not. It's in the head. It's a problem making faculty in the head. In the present moment, problems cannot survive. And then you actually become much more effective at taking action when you don't create problems.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
