Are there other states besides the Past, Present, and Future?

This morning, I pulled an Osho Zen Tarot card and got the 2 of Rainbows: Moment to Moment. It said that the future hasn't happened and the past is over, so the only realistic place to be is in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle urges us to stay in the NOW as do many other teachers.

Suddenly, in a flash of insight, I realized that there are lots of other places to "go"--and sometimes stay!

My favorite is Victim. When I am in my Victim place, I'm not in the present, nor the past, nor the future (well, maybe the past). I grew up with a mother who yelled at me a lot and since I couldn't run away or tell her to F off, I just stood there and took it. I developed a handy little trick of dissociation. Whether my spirit left my body or it was a biological numbing against the verbal assault, I served me well then as protection. I also spent hours playing solitaire (with real cards) and today I spend hours playing computer games when I'm feeling stressed and need to run away.

So ideally, the best place to be is in the moment, the now. But there are so many other places to go: Denial, Blame, Anger, Fear. I'm sure there are more, but I'll bet you are starting to get the picture. None of those are the present moment. They are what Tolle calls the Pain Body--past emotional pain alive in your life today.

“The pain-body is a semi-autonomous energy-form that lives within most human beings, an entity made up of emotion. It has its own primitive intelligence, not unlike a cunning animal, and its intelligence is directed primarily at survival." ~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

The more conscious we can stay (or surround ourselves with supportive people who encourage us to stay conscious), the less active our pain body will be, and the more we can live in the moment.

I picked up an issue of Scientific American yesterday and found an article on happiness. It said that half our ability to be happy is genetic, and the rest is a choice, dictated by our thoughts. When we complain about how stressed we are or how lousy our life is, we are not choosing happiness and we are attracting more of what we don't want. 

So all these teachers are saying the same thing. Everything is really a choice. Maybe there are situations we can't control, but how we react to them is definitely within our control. We can choose to be upset or choose to stay centered and present and make the best choices. 

What are you choosing?