Presence and the power of Now (Personal development wisdom snippets) | #439

Snippet of wisdom 57.

In this series, I select my favourite, most insightful moments from previous episodes of the podcast.

Today's snippet is from my conversation with Martin O'Toole, author of the book "How To Die Happy". 

It is about presence - being in the present moment. The power of now.

I trust that you'll find it insightful!

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𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗨𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘:

Listen to the full conversation with Martin O'Toole in episodes #316-317:

Part 1: https://bit.ly/pdm_316

Part 2: https://bit.ly/pdm_317

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Transcript

Agi Keramidas: 0:03

Welcome to personal development mastery podcast, and this is another snippet of wisdom where I select my favorite, most insightful moments from previous episodes. Today, I have selected for you a snippet from my conversation with Martin O'Toole, author of the book, How to die happy. It is about presence, being in the present moment, the power of now. I trust that you will find it useful.

Martin O'Toole: 0:35

now. I'm not a guru, not an enlightened being. I'm not a coach, I'm not a PhD. I'm a man on the mend, as you said earlier on. Ultimately, I would say I am an expert in suffering. I'd say I'm an expert in self suffering as well, co created suffering as most of us are, if we're willing to accept that we are actually co responsible for the lion's share of our suffering. But the point is, this is the this is the treasure. And if we can get our head around this particular wisdom, this is the key, the absolute key, to unlocking a lot of this mystery. So Buddha says attachment is the root of all suffering, then we have to ask ourselves, what is attachment then? Well, I think we've, we've discussed that now, and that is the idea of clinging on to things. But we've also, we've also identified that all things are in a state of flux, a state of change. They are impermanent. So by that rationale, is it wise to cling on to something that we know is going to change. Nay, it might end. It might change to the point of ending. So if we can fully grasp impermanence as a universal constant, then we can change our relationship with everything around us. We must realize that all things are going to change or end, therefore we cannot cling to them. And it's in the clinging that that the suffering, where the suffering is born. So we've to try to reframe everything we think we know about our relationship with everything in our world, and we've we to stop clinging to them. We've got to, we can, we can connect, of course, you know, I'm talking about your husband, or your wife here as well right now, or even your children, you know? And of course, some people might say, oh, you know, we talked about my children dying, but they're going to so we must, must, must have that conversation. Because if we keep shutting ourselves down every time we we start to have this conversation, then we will never, ever grow, individually or collectively. What's the point? You may ask? Well, the point is really simple, and you already alluded to at the beginning this conversation, AGI, if we can do all of that stuff that I just suggested, and I know it's not a 10 minute job, it's a task. There's a lot of work that has to go into this. Then suddenly we become present. We become grateful and aware for the absolute bliss in the present moment. You know, I always say Eckhart Tolle said, One conscious breath is a meditation. Now, people constantly say to me, I can't meditate and and I respect that, because I remember being in that, in that, in that place myself a fair few years back, and I remember being angry with myself because I couldn't meditate, because it couldn't be still, because it couldn't be at peace. But then you think about Eckhart tolle's wisdom. What happened just then? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I wasn't thinking about anything. You might have been thinking, what the hell's Martin doing? And maybe the audience was, but maybe some people actually caught the breath as well and went, Oh yeah, that's nice. Let's let's do that. Let's have a conscious breath so that right there is presence. Is what Eckhart Tolle refers to as the power of now, and it's what mindfulness teaches for 1000s of years have referred to as nowness. So if we can stop regretting the past. We can stop worrying about fractal futures that, incidentally, are likely not even to happen. Then what have we got left we've got now. So who am I right now? How do I feel right now? Actually, I feel great. I'm having a fantastic conversation with you, and I'm. I'm hoping that this is, this is helpful for other people. And, you know, I'm now living the rest of my life in service to others. So, so I want this, this sort of stuff, to to help people to reframe their perspective on life. But in the in this moment, I am in flow state. I am accepting, I am aware, I am present and I'm grateful now, of course, when we start to think about all of those things, and then you play back your your top 10 regrets, start to ask yourself, Okay, hang on a minute. Am I grateful for my parents? Yes, I am. Hang on a minute. In that list of regrets I've written, I would regret that I had missed. I hadn't spoken to my dad for 12 months because we fell out over the most petty thing possible, for example. So these are the exercises that we should be doing to learn this wonderful thing of presence of nowness, and then to apply it to to our world around us, and that is living well, and that's ultimately the point. Now, if you manage to do all of that in a day, doesn't matter, actually, let's doesn't matter, because even if you did one of those things in a day, then that's one less regret. So but if you did manage to fix a load of these things in a day, imagine how much progress you've just made for you and for those close to you. And of course, there are many, many beautiful byproducts as a result of this work. It's like a like dropping a pebble in a pond. You know, the ripple effect carries on and on and on. So anyway, I rambled on there. I apologize I was on my soapbox about presence.

Agi Keramidas: 6:51

Thank you for listening. You will find the full conversation with Martin O'Toole in episodes 316, 317, the links are in the episode description. If you enjoy this podcast, can you think of one person that would find it useful and share it with them? I appreciate it until next time. Stand Out. Don't fit in .