The Key

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I was going through an anxious few weeks recently when I found Anxiety Girl, I laughed out loud, so funny, so keenly true, so me.

I must admit that something so simple gave me two things to think about:

- I was translating any discomfort into impending doom.

- Obviously, I was not the only one.

Thanks to my still infant Mindfulness skills, I know that anxiety is an intense reaction to my own thoughts. This is helpful for me every single day. However, there is a point where not reacting to an avalanche of thoughts is easier said than done, especially when I am tired and facing life changing decisions.

Drawing from my professional experience, I can tell you that it is better, from a design point of view, to build a system with features to prevent a fault, rather than to contain a fault once it has already ocurred. Hence, it makes sense to find a way to prevent thoughts from snowballing into avalanches.

The way we react is part habit, part the way we are wired and part what you can get away with in your culture. Disclaimer: I might not be professionally qualified to make such statement, but have had enough therapy in my life to know that I am entitled to my opinion.

But what are all those thoughts I keep talking about? positive thoughts? negative thoughts? future thoughts? well, all of them. This continuous thinking is preventing me from the very thing I am trying to achieve: being in the present.

There are times when it is easy to be present: when you savour that delicious tapioca and mango mousse; or when you explain to your child the dangers of playing with scissors, while trying to keep a straight face at the marvelous haircut he's just given himself; or when you're lulled into a sleep by the breathing of your lover next to you.

There are times when you wish you were somewhere else, or that you could hang your life on the nearest coat rack, hoping that someone else would want to wear it for a while.

Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth tell us to not fight the now, to embrace it and make friends with it, no matter what it is, there is no good or bad, all it happens is part of the same fabric. Pain, frustration and anxiety are caused by our own resistance to the now.

Slowness, waiting, physical inactivity are sources of stress for me. In fact, I once refused to read a book club choice because of its title "Slowness". Interestingly, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" seemed a lot more appealing and it was also written by the same author, and one of my favourites, Milan Kundera.

A humbling moment for me came when I figured out that I can only move as fast as my body. Therefore 1000 KPH thoughts are not going to get me out of the rough patches any quicker. I need to learn to bring my whole presence here, where my body is.

This is the key. Not to approach being in the moment from the thought realm, but to be present from no thought

à la prochaine, mes amis,

Evelia