"Make the best of it.  When you make the best of whatever you're focused upon, your future will be better than your now."
- Abraham-Hicks

Now

The power of "now" resides in the fact that the only real moment of power we have to think, to be, or to have anything we want is now. Yesterday is unreachable except in our memory, and the future is, well, in the future, where we have no power.

In my past as a psychotherapist, I was taught that in order to help someone, I had to know as much about their clinical history as possible. Now I know this is not necessary in order to soothe somebody’s pain. Back then, I instinctively asked my clients where it was they wanted to go from their now reality. I asked about their past because I felt I had to do it since it was part of my duties. I couldn’t escape what I learned during my years as a student. I had learned that the only way to help somebody leave behind the old patterns of behavior that kept them functioning poorly or not at all in some areas of their life was to make them return to “where it all began.” 

I was taught that people needed to submerge themselves in their past trauma and fight their demons in order to come out strong and able to function "appropriately."  It was absolutely necessary that they “own” their feelings, that they spoke in feeling terms, and that when they found a particularly painful memory, that they stay there and “process” whatever came up for them. Occasionally this was done with the assistance of pharmacology, so the client would be medicated while receiving therapy. 

I now believe that when the client took the medication that he or she believed in, it would help them feel better regardless of how they felt about the therapy itself...because it made their now different.  Once they began to peek out of the dark, they were able to see their situation differently. They could recognize their feelings without dwelling or being mired in them.  During those times, I instinctively would talk with my clients almost exclusively about where they wanted to go, not where they had been. And my clients improved. 

Bliss is our right, and it is within our reach – it is a part of us. All we need to do is to acquire new habits of thought and expect joy.