Thriving in the Now with Arianna Huffington and Eckhart Tolle

Thriving in the Now with Arianna Huffington and Eckhart Tolle
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At the recent Salesforce conference in San Francisco, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Pulitzer-Prize winning Huffington Post and Eckhart Tolle, one of the world's leading and most beloved spiritual teachers of our time, sat down to discuss how to truly thrive in the digital age.

Tolle, dubbed by Oprah as "the father of the now," explained that we tend to regard the present moment as an obstacle to overcome by rushing to the next moment, which we falsely believe will bring the fulfillment we are looking for. We believe happiness is somewhere in the future. But, if you miss the present step on the journey, you miss your life. To bring awareness to the moment, an important question to you ask yourself is "What is my relationship to the present moment? How am I relating to it?" He points out, "Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true, and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment -- a means to an end."

Huffington recounted a story about a holiday in Hawaii, in which her family agreed to take a weeklong digital detox, so that they could truly connect with each other and the moment without the distraction of "tweeting" the sunset or "instagraming" their dinner plate.

Our continual racing from one thing to the next tends to cause impatience and stress. Huffington learned the hard way with a physical collapse due to extreme exhaustion that was a "wakeup call," to slow down.
Tolle suggested we try mini meditations throughout the day, as a way to focus on the present moment. This stops our constant stream of thinking, the voice in our head, which is often negative and self-defeating. He referred to our inner voice as "clutter in the mind," and said that eighty percent of our thinking is unnecessary and interferes with our enjoyment of life. Huffington humorously referred to the voice in her head, as her "obnoxious roommate," the voice of doubt and fear that prevents us from being present and our creative best.

Tolle ended the conference with an important lesson, "Don't wait to be successful at some future point, have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

For more information on Eckhart Tolle, please click here.

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