Do you find your mind racing a mile a minute at the thought of having to discuss a situation with your Ex? Or perhaps you have anxiety when thinking about the next time you’ll both be in court?

Being present in the moment can be difficult to do; especially when you have stressful events coming up on your calendar. It can be difficult to concentrate on the tasks you need to accomplish today.

We know dwelling on the future is counter-productive. But you may find it difficult to keep your mind focused on the present. When the mind is busy obsessing about future events, what usually happens is that you end up feeding into your own anxiety. Logically we know that we have no control over the future; but sometimes the mind just wants to go other places and you find yourself getting all wound up.

I know for me, that if I start projecting how a future situation would turn out, the outcome I’m visualizing most likely is a train wreck. My fears start overtaking common sense. Next I start losing sleep; and by the time the event rolls around I’m tired, stressed out and don’t handle the situation as well as I could have. This all feeds into my anxiety, and then the cycle will just repeat itself on the next stressful event.

So what do you do? Let me give you two techniques to keep yourself present in today:

1. Take a ‘Today Break‘. When you feel yourself obsessing about a future event close your eyes and concentrate on sounds around you. Perhaps it’s listening to the tapping of your office neighbor clicking away on their keyboard; a bird chirping outside, or the rhythm of your breathing. Concentrate, and if you find your mind slipping away...gently pull it back to what's going on around you. Do this for five minutes and you’ll feel more at peace and back into today.

2. When I have ‘chatter’ going on in my brain I’m usually projecting a future conversation in my head. It goes something like this. I will say A, he will say B and then I will respond with C. If he says D, then I will respond with E and so on. Sound familiar?

What I find is that if I visualize a hamster in its cage running on a wheel (a loud and squeaky wheel!) and he just keeps going faster. When he’s really running fast, then I imagine putting a stick between the spokes to bring the wheel to an immediate halt. The image of the hamster flying is enough to put a smile on my face. I remind myself that I’m just going round and round like the hamster and accomplishing nothing other than raising my own blood pressure.

You may find in the beginning that you may need to do one (or both!), several times a day. Like anything else in life, the more you practice the better you’ll get at pulling your mind back to today.

Overtime you’ll come to realize that your time is much better spent enjoying right now; instead of letting it slip by. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

Please comment below on the things that you obsess about.