The past is irreversible, the future is unpredictable, the run of time causes stress – and how to learn to live joyfully "here and now"? And yet our correspondent decided to try. Here is the diary of her observations.
I am uncomfortable. It is very uncomfortable “here and now”, in its own life: the political climate is a difficult, economic crisis goes to the next round, the state of the environment scares, in the kindergarten a new teacher, to whom you need to get used to it. It seems we are constantly walking around the edge. How to enjoy the current moment?
To be honest, I am able to “be in the present” only a couple of times a day, for example in the morning, when the children are already in the classroom, coffee is cooked, and I have not yet renewed the news feed. I love these ten minutes when you can just sit in the corner of the sofa. And let the regiments of bookstores break from publications calling to "live better here and now". I pass by, because I sincerely do not understand how to live what I have today, now, and at the same time not choke on anxiety. Why is it so difficult for me to be in the present, in the only given person of reality?
One of the reasons is purely physiological: the brain is simply not adapted to this. “We do not have a special organ to perceive this moment of time, unlike, for example, from taste or smell,” said neurobiologist Pierre Buser 1 . To realize the flow of time, we look at the clock that actually shows just numbers. We perceive the time in a completely different way: an hour in the dental chair seems like an eternity, and a week on vacation is one moment.
Moreover, we tend to expand the present, involuntarily staining it just what happened and what is about to happen-just like we combine separate notes into chords and melody. There is a feeling that the present escapes us, is not given into our hands and, while we say that we need to enjoy (and of course, hang a picture on Facebook) (an extremist organization banned in Russia), it has already passed irrevocably ..
Fourth dimension
Expression "here and now" – tracing paper with "hic et nunc". The Latin version was used not philosophically, but quite utilitarian: to indicate that something (for example, payment of debt or surrender) should happen immediately, without leaving the place. If we are talking about our life, then it is involuntarily happening “here and now” (if we do not have a clone or a time machine yet). At the same time, we rarely manage to truly realize and feel like living in a given moment: this feeling is a childhood privilege. “In the picture of the world of five or six-year-old children there are no past and future, therefore they are so direct, spontaneous and free,” explains Gestalt therapist Maria Andreeva. -growing up, they begin to build causal relationships. Gradually, liability appears, as well as restrictions and requirements in relation to itself ".
In the evening, the https://globalpharmacy24.com/drug/super-tadarise child talks about what was during the day, then he understands that for tomorrow’s performance in the kindergarten you need to prepare today … So adult life is gradually entering the nursery. But adults have a chance to again experience a sense of freedom, carelessness, timeless completeness of being: in moments of happiness, carried away by the game or even just looking at the sea or at the fire.
The usual burden of an adult is to keep plans for a day, for a week, for a month, analyze past mistakes and prepare future achievements, extract experience and anticipate difficulties … "For an adult, to think only about the present would be irresponsibly, infantile, childishly," says Maria Andreeva. It is not for nothing that we do not approve of those who live today – they lack scale, prospects, goals.
Then I ask Gestalt therapist the main question-what does the desired “live in the present” mean for me, a 38-year-old woman, mother of two children? And I get a simple answer: “Emotionally and consciously live what is happening to you. Be accessible to your own emotions, do not brush yourself from grief, do not put off unpleasant feelings “for later” and not forbid yourself to rejoice. Live what is, every moment … "
"To be in shape and listen to yourself"
Katya Kholopova, 39 years old, Corporate Director for Public Relations Estée Lauder in Russia and the CIS
I tried different sports and realized that, as physical exertion, which, I am sure, are necessary for all residents of large cities, power training is most suitable for me – powerlifting. I have been doing three times a week for 14 years. What does it give me? I stopped leading a way of such a life when mobility was combined only with stress. That it didn’t lead to anything good: it is necessary the opposite – to possess your reactions in stress, and in ordinary life you can’t turn into a jelly. And although I am still a very restless worker, now I’m constant constructively: I know how to cope with different births of loads, super-assignments-methodically, without doing everything at once. In three approaches, as in sports.
My "today" does not exist separately from the past and future, it is organically woven throughout life. In order to have time for everything, you need to be in shape, without a sensation that is familiar to many: “All will be twisted, bought up and now – it scratches to work. »Three times a week I have to think only about my bodily sensations – which muscle should work now and work. This teaches me to own my body, to be hardy, disciplined, to listen more than myself. I take care that the muscles are in good shape, so that they strain a little more than them (me) comfortable. And I have no need to limit myself in what I like today, for the sake of mythical future prospects.
The practice of presence
Yeah, I understand what is about. American psychologist Ellen Langer generally believes that attention, awareness is what we are most missing to feel alive. If we look around an open, attentive, unbiased look, we can see the world “as for the first time”;If we make efforts to look at, we will notice new shades, smells and sounds, small changes, the possibilities that have arisen. Automatisms, on the contrary, turn off our consciousness from reality: we drive a car to the cottage, clean potatoes or go along the familiar street “on autopilot”, while thinking about something else.
“Here and now is one of the principles of psychotherapy, which allows you to organize a person’s attention so that he focuses on what is happening at the moment, distracted from thought, memories of the past or future,” explains the existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. – Blessed Augustine introduced the concept of “real present”: it is such a state of mind in which it is completely focused on what is happening. Attention is that it is extremely important for knowing the essence "2 .
The eastern sages have long noticed: it is important not what we do, but how we do it. In the book of the psychotherapist Abby Seyshez “In search of the secret river, I read:“ There are two ways to wash the dishes. First: wash the dishes so that it is clean and the second is to wash the dishes to wash the dishes. If we think only about the noise of water about a cup of tea that awaits us ahead, and try to end the dishes as soon as possible, we do not live – we are not able to realize the miracle that our life is ”3 .
When something good comes in life, you need to survive it in its entirety, so that then it is not scary
Personally, I trust in washing the plates of the dishwasher, but otherwise I agree – it is difficult to notice and enjoy the current moment not only to me, but also to many of my friends. Meeting, we are sorting through the past (“But before …” or “if then …”), thereby limiting our capabilities today. “Still, I had to go to the architectural,” loves my friend Sasha, a wonderful translator. – I would become a designer and would be a hundred times happier. ". “Once and again losing the situation, we seem to restore the favorable course of events, deep down, hoping that in the end something will change,” explains the psychoanalyst Katya Denard (Katia Denard).
Unconscious, Freud considered, alien the flow of time: unpleasant events and after many years are fresh and relevant, as if they had happened to us only yesterday. “In experiencing (and chewing) the past makes sense if we try to learn from what was, to figure out where and when we made a mistake, a wrong step,” emphasizes Maria Andreeva. – Such thoughts mean: we use the past as an experience that helps us navigate in the present and look into the future. ".
“Catch the day!"
“Carpe Diem” is the call of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270. BC. e.) often interpreted as an invitation to a rampant with abundant meals, sexual excesses and the satisfaction of all desires. However, reasonable hedonism actually requires firmness and zeal, as well as the ability to live the present in order to cope with the main anxiety: the fear of death.
In the famous “letter to Menkei”, Epicurus explains that it is useless to worry about the hypothetical and unknown future, over which we are not powerful. Anxieties about the future only spoil the present. Epicurus offers to accept four life rules: not to be afraid of the gods, not to be afraid of death, easy to achieve the good and defeat pain. Such a way of life, “so that the soul is not worried,” Epicurus called Ataraxia – the calm of the spirit.