Day 18: Stuck in Time vs. The Power of Now
Making Art, Finding Presence and Letting Go
It occurred to me today that I came to where our honeymoon was supposed to be—and I never left. I’ve reflected on the significance of that many times. I always thought I was meant to be in Bali, guided here by some cosmic force. My ex and I were supposed to honeymoon here, but the honeymoon never happened. (I wrote about this in Sober Yoga Girl.) Yet, I came on my own—and I stayed. Well, not completely. From 2017 to 2021, I left and lived in Abu Dhabi, “our” city, the one we visited together multiple times because it was where he worked. I’d never been to Abu Dhabi before I met him. Does this mean I’ve been perpetually keeping myself stuck in 2017? Or was he always meant to lead me to these places?
I’ve always believed my ex was meant to lead me here. But while talking to a friend, Blair, today about the “invisible string” that seems to tether me and my ex, a new thought struck me: it’s as if I’ve stayed in Bali to relive our honeymoon on my own, every day, for the rest of my life. Could the same be true about Abu Dhabi? Or maybe I am just making my own memories in these places?
Me and my friend Blair talked about how much that relationship has affected both me and my ex. (By the way - I am so grateful for the numerous profound friendships I have right now. I realize that each day I’ve been able to write about the incredible people who have held space for me to sort out this story. Not only friends, but yoga teachers, trainers, and coaches. I am abundant with supportive people right now, both online and offline, and I am extremely grateful for that). Blair said it is so interesting how our relationship was so profound, so pivotal, for not just one of us but both of us, that we each wrote a book to process it. He asked me, “What was so traumatic about it?”
I answered honestly: it wasn’t just the relationship that affected us, but everything happening around it. The chaos of those two years of our lives. For me, personally, not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. Usually, it hits me about thirty minutes into my day, when I look around and realize: this is my life now. I live in Bali now. And the freedom, the joy, the bliss, the calmness of every day. And in that moment, I feel an overwhelming gratitude for my life as it is now.
Blair asked further. “So where does the trauma in the relationship come from? Did he abuse you?”
It was a fair question (Blair hasn’t read my book). “No, he didn’t,” I said.
“So where’s it from?”
“The trauma comes from how much I hurt him—and how he wouldn’t talk to me for years.”
“It sounds like he really loved you,” Blair replied.
“He did.”
No one has ever loved me the way he did. And I think that’s why this has lingered for eight years. All my life, I wanted someone to love me like that—and when it finally happened, I just couldn’t love him back.
It’s wild how something like this can shape you for so long. I told my friend, “I knew it affected me, but I didn’t realize how deeply—until now. I definitely didn’t think I’d be sitting here, eight years later, still unpacking it.”
After Blair left to go to the beach (I’m avoiding the beach because of my dog bite recovery), I sat in a café reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Chapter 3 resonated deeply—it’s about fully inhabiting the present moment to overcome suffering and discover inner peace. One of the key teachings is the idea of letting go of psychological time. Tolle defines psychological time as the mental preoccupation with the past and future—exactly what I’ve been doing by staying stuck in a time period from eight years ago.
Living in the past creates guilt, regret, and resentment, while focusing on the future breeds anxiety and fear. True liberation occurs when we anchor ourselves in the Now, where neither regret nor fear exists. Tolle writes:
“What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace—and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is ‘borrowed’ from the Now.”
This mirrors the teachings of the Yoga Sutras. In Sutra 1.2, Patanjali defines yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. By quieting the mental chatter, we align ourselves with the present moment—the ultimate goal of yoga. The concept of time as an illusion also surfaces in Sutra 3.52: “By samyama on the sequence of moments, knowledge is born from discrimination.” Sutra 4.33 reinforces this: “The uninterrupted flow of time can be understood by myriad reference points. But only when we let these references go can we exist at the fountainhead of presence.”
This teaching of finding peace in the presence is central to so many wisdom traditions, not just Patanjali’s Sutras or Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. It also shows up in Alcoholics Anonymous. The idea of “One Day at a Time,” central to AA, also reflects this wisdom. Staying sober and living life just for today is a practice of present-moment awareness, freeing us from the overwhelm of future anxieties and past regrets.
As I sat in the café, I thought about Shane Koyczan’s poem, How to Be a Person. Part of it came to me just out of nowhere.
“Find your voice, know that not all languages contain words. Your voice could be music, it could be dance. It will be what expresses you most sincerely. Your voice is an art. If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.”
I think that my heart is still broken and I can’t believe I’m still making art with the pieces eight years later. It seems like this is what this Substack is turning into this week. But I did say to my friend Blair today, “After reading his book on Saturday, I think it’s starting to feel like the beginning of the end.”
And maybe that’s the practice—to keep making art, to keep arriving in the present.
This is my yoga now. The art of being here, in this moment. The art of letting go.
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