Briana Wiest

Changing Your Relationship to the Present

From there, the quote naturally points to the practice of presence. Much of human suffering comes from resisting the current moment, replaying the past, or rehearsing the future. By changing our relationship to now, we loosen that resistance and meet life more directly. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now (1997) popularized a similar insight: peace often emerges when attention returns to immediate experience. As a result, the present stops feeling like an obstacle and starts becoming a place of contact. A difficult conversation, a delay, or a quiet afternoon may still be what it is, yet the struggle around it softens. Presence does not erase pain; instead, it changes how pain is carried. [...]