Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is.

When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you relinquish the conceptual identity you made for them - your interpretation of who they are and what they did in the past - and are able to interact without the egoic movements of desire and fear. Attention, which is alert stillness, is the key.

What you think of as they 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. When you think about the future, you do it 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.

People are amazed to realize they can enjoy the moment rather than be stressed by it when hurrying to an appointment. You can enjoy the energy movement of the moment when you do not have a mental projection of a future moment you need to get to. You still know that you need to get there, but it is the secondary consideration.

For a relationship to deepen, at some point the spiritual dimension needs to come in. You don't even need to be fully awakened for this to happen, but if it does happen it certainly means you are awakening.

Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents.

Stress is a form of suffering. Look at your body and see what stress does to the body and its functions - what it does to the heart, the circulation, the immune system, the digestive function, the liver.