Posted on November 06, 2010 by CJ Article Team

You only live in this present moment. No other time exists. The past is over and done. The future will always be a day away. So you can only live in happiness when you live in the present.

When you stop and think about it, your past is really a story you told yourself about events that happened earlier in your life. Maybe those stories are real and accurate. Chances are they bare no resemblance to the facts of any of those events.

People who hold on to their past often feed their unhappy stories-where they felt victimized. They go over and over the events that, according to them, led to their being hurt by other people and circumstances they deemed to be of their control.

Such people invest so much (sometimes all) of themselves in their hurts so they can blame others rather than assume responsibility for how their world looks now. Those people prefer re-living their past to changing their lives to create a happier future.

If you can maintain a neutral position when they tell their stories you will not get drawn in. The bottom line here is that your empathy and sympathy only serve to feed their stories and keep them stuck in their pain. When you allow them to re-tell their same old hurts you enable them to wallow and envelop themselves in untruths. In fact you give them permission to reject taking any responsibility at all for anything in their world.

A friend would not enable a friend to remain in pain. If you know someone who tells you about their pain, how horribly others treated them, the best gift you can share with them is to stop them. The next time they try to re-tell their story tell them you heard it before and you will not listen again.

Of course they will then create a story about you and how you hurt them-unless you let them know you love them too much to watch them drown in their non-serving stories. You may even ask them if they really want to change-or if they really want to continue to re-live their hurts.

Friend keep themselves and their friends living in the present. In this moment you are free from pain. If something hurts then you act to stop it-you do not simply sit back and hurt. You take action-in this moment.

You can only hurt by looking to the past or fearing the future. To live in happiness stay present-right here, right now.

If so, download my brand new free Special Report: 45 Tips To Live In Happiness Now here:http://liveinhappinessnow.com/ebook.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ali_Bierman

By Ali Bierman