You Don’t Have to be Present All the Time

Practicing mindfulness needs to be balanced with allowing your mind to wander, reflect, and take action to achieve optimal mental wellbeing, creativity, and meaningful community engagement.

Many of my therapy clients have told me: “I should learn how to relax and be present.” This is an unfortunate consequence of media and marketing that turned mindfulness into a “quick fix” of our frail humanness. The media has also claimed that allowing our minds to wander is always bad for our emotional health. But mindfulness was never meant to be a complete tool for our wellbeing. Even in the spiritual traditions that practice mindfulness, it was never meant to be done in isolation from the rest of spirituality.

“Relaxation” is not the same as “presence”, nor can either state be forced by “should.” How can we claim to be present if we are pushing away difficult feelings and thoughts that are part of our present moment? We cannot claim to be present if we are lost dwelling in our thoughts and feelings that do not fully represent our present moment.

Instead of escaping, dwelling, or relaxing, mindfulness aims to help us compassionately witness our experience without identifying with it. This can anchor us and build our self-awareness. These skills are needed in knowing how to respond to problems instead of reacting habitually. Mindfulness can further help us witness the experiences of other people without getting lost in them and without judging them. This is an essential skill in fostering compassion rather than pity.

However, mindfulness without self-reflection or taking action can keep us passive. Mindfulness serves to show us things as they are without the limitations of analysis, judgment, or reactivity. Once we have done that, our minds will be more receptive to self-reflection so that we can make sense of what we have observed in mindfulness. The two combined can help us take meaningful actions that serve our self-development and our community without coming from places of reactivity or limiting judgments.

Self-reflection and taking action will not be complete without permitting our minds to wander. While it is true that our wandering minds may get lost in places that hurt us, it is equally true that our creativity and ability to envision and plan for the future will be restricted if we do not allow ourselves to ever go beyond the present. Many of the world’s inventors and creatives came up with their best contributions through having daily habits or working in jobs that allowed their minds to wander.

Those of us who have gone through trauma may have needed to escape the present moment to survive mentally. While research indicates that mindfulness is beneficial, this does not mean that we should downplay the things that had gotten us this far. Instead, mindfulness can be used alongside an intentional and constructive use of distraction without needing to replace it entirely. I recommend doing this with the support of a trauma-informed therapist, as some of us may not be prepared for how meditation may potentially trigger traumatic memories.

We are being human, not failures, when we cannot “stay present” all the time, even in spiritual traditions that practice mindfulness, going beyond the present is encouraged. As is mentioned in Islamic mysticism, the spiritual seeker is not only “the child of the moment” but is also lost in love for the Divine that they are no longer present in Dunya (the material world).