Tags
Anywhere but here, Broken bones, dandelions, Healing, living in the moment, modus operandi, Post-traumatic stress, progress, PTSD, Reality, Recovery, Swine flu, Therapy, Trauma, Truth
No matter how you cut it, there’s always more ways to slice and dice anything. You can take the tiniest sliver, and if you have the right tools, cut it up again and again. You can make shavings of slivers and get all microscopic about it.
What’s that got to do with anything? Umm, nothing. And everything.
It’s just that y’know, measurement is highly relative. So is progress.
Where do we really ever get to, other than right where we are at any given moment? We’re just where we’re at, period.
The wanting of other things, that’s where we get ourselves into trouble. Wanting to be somewhere or someone else, or another version of yourself – thinner, wiser, funnier, smarter and so on. We want to be healed. We can’t forget the past. We reminisce of happier times. Want to be on holidays again, go back to places we’ve been.
Anywhere but here.
Or, we think of where we want to get to – being in love with someone wonderful, being a parent, healthy and whole, nicer teeth, earning big money. Or, just more simply… we look towards a place where we’ll be really happy.
Trying to just live in the here and now is difficult. Western culture is set up to either think of the past or look to the future. There’s really not much here and now in our lives at all.
Sitting on a tram surrounded by strangers, most people are thinking about getting away from such close proximity (BTW, did you hear Melbourne is now Australia’s Swine Flu capital?). At work, we’re bored or annoyed or looking forward to lunch or going home or socialising after work.
We’re rarely living in the moment, but it can happen: riding a push bike consciously, getting a massive fright, meditation, having a really intense meeting, seeing an amazing live band or dance performance… these are just some examples.
When it happens, for seconds or minutes (if we’re lucky), we feel intensely alive.
Some people get hooked on that, and then get into adrenaline-based activities. Although, it then becomes less about being in the moment, and more about the ‘rush’ we feel afterwards. And looking forward to the next time.
During the worst of my PTSD, where it wasn’t so much ‘episodes’ – more just one long waking nightmare, day in, day out… I wished away much of my life.
Truly, I believed it was possible to wait out my trauma. I thought I’d get better over time, like healing a broken bone – sure it hurts for ages, but eventually it gets better.
And while I waited, I shut down the rest of my life. Just sat there, waiting. But never in the moment. I was too busy thinking about that unspecified time in the future when I’d be okay again.
Never worked out that way of course. Turns out the source of a lot of my pain was about avoiding. Didn’t want to be in the moment at the time (quite understandably) and didn’t want to know about it afterwards, either.
Thing is, to start to move forward and just to begin the healing process, that’s exactly what I had to do – get very present and very real with the pain, the terror and all of the rammifications.
Its the polar opposite of our standard modus operandi: dropping out of reality.
No wonder healing feels so scary and hard at times!
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I wrote a draft of this a little while back, but Brooks’ recent post reminded me it was there, casually sitting in one of my writing files. So I looked it up and thought… yeah, time to come out…
~Svasti
Yea! Nice post. Don’t wait anymore! I’m getting on with life, too.
Hi, Svasti –
I really like the positive energy — the hope — this posting brings to the cyber world . . . thanks for sharing!
– Marie (Coming Out of the Trees)
http://mmaaggnnaa.wordpress.com/
I wish for you a bright future. One that will be full of happiness and hope and as pain free as life can be when one is actually living it. You are a bright young woman with a lot of determination. I hope you never lose that.
My little poodle licks the dandelion you have in your picture. I call them her “ice cream cones”. 🙂
I hope that you are doing well. I love this post. It reminds me to be in the moment. I have such a horrible habit of being in the past or future.
*hugs*
Sigh. I LOVE this blog! So much so that I am going to keep right on with writing disjointed nonsense in every comment box I see.
(I may have written some stuff about “in the momentness” in the comment box of the previous post, thinking I was writing it here)
@yogabrooks – Well, so you should be now that your blog’s famous! 😉
@mmaaggnnaa – Hi Marie, I’m very glad you liked this piece!! I’ve been meaning to add your blog to my RSS reader (done!) and come over to do some reading. Hope to get some time to do that soon.
@tricia – I wish all of those things right back at you. You deserve it, okay?
@Chunks of Reality – That’s so cute about your poodle! I hope you’re starting to feel better. Just remember, action is taken in the moment only – go get em!!
@Bird – Hehe, you crack me up. 😉
Not to worry, you were clearly writing your comment on the other post whilst living in the now!
I’ve been known at times to be in a situation…like, a cool situation, in a beautiful place, having fun with friends, at a really good concert…and think “it’d be really cool to be doing this…” as if I wasn’t there…and, in a sense, I wasn’t…my mind was unable to focus in on where I was instead of wandering into past, future, and nowhere….
@Jay – I think its fairly common. For whatever reason, being just where we are at is tough to come to terms with. I’ve even found myself thinking about other things while getting a completely awesome massage. Crazy, right?
Great post, Svasti.
I can kinda identify with drjay up there.
I’ve been in some great moments where I don’t feel I enjoyed them to potential, usually because I was either a. obsessing about something that had happened previously, or b. obsessing about something that I thought may happen in the future. Now looking back at that “great moment,” I yearn to have a do-over. It’s like I’m only now realizing how good it was, or should’ve been…
I used to do some reading on Zen and believe I understand the concept of living in the moment, but it takes discipline. And, you have to want to change… Have to go think about this now…