Our minds are incredibly active and complex. It is believed that even when we appear calm, our conscious mind processes around 70,000 thoughts from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. These thoughts can range from intricate and interconnected to simple and sensory-focused.
Often, we don't give enough attention to our thoughts. Our stream of consciousness can be turbulent, disorganised, and persistent. In a single minute, we might jump from being angry at a friend to worrying about a tax return. Then a passing thought of a raven may remind us of our grandmother, who we once visited in Greece. This leads us to think about buying lip balm, and then we may suddenly feel a pain in our left knee. Our thoughts may then shift to an old partner whom we had forgotten about since college, and then we might start planning to buy a table lamp for our living room. All of this can happen in just thirty seconds of idle daydreaming.
Reaching this point of sensory overload identifies with a condition where we find it quite hard to process what we really experience. We don’t have time to work on the anger that overtakes us; we don’t often acknowledge the sadness that dogs us. We can not spoil the perspective project that makes us alive with hope for our future. Too often, we can’t think our own thoughts or feel our own feelings.
Rather, our intellectual stuff is thrown into the shadowy core of the unconscious. It is in us, but without our knowledge. We are out of the rage, knowledge, and longing; we are not looked upon with sympathy and relief.
However, this is not just a theoretical loss. It is a high cost we have to pay for the fact that tens of years’ worth of unknown experience gets built up within us. And our feelings and thoughts tend to protest quite actively – or at least more actively – when they are not. We all have, you could say, an emotional conscience that insists that we pay proper attention to what flows through us—or punishes us for our inattention. Untreated anger will change into irritability, unattended sorrow will become aimless and desperate, and envy not analysed might bear bitterness. So-called mental illnesses are often the consequence of parts of our lives with which we have been unable to come to terms or through which we have never properly passed.
We can only hope to have our troubles appeased if we embark on a journey of self-discovery. The more we can finally allow ourselves to know who we are the more we can feel what lives do have for real, at peace, growing as sentient.
This brings out the significance of periodic psychological digestions; moments when conscientiously proceedings save from oblivion parts of the mental material which first came into view unintelligibly.
Unfortunately, the proportion of lived time versus processing time with which we need to work is oppressive. If we had really done it justice, five minutes of ordinary life might require twenty minutes to unpack. We might have to think for a fortnight if we wished to know exactly what had taken place on an ordinary day. A Thousand and One Volumes of the Real Story of Our Lives.
However, such figures should not substitute for humble and consistent effort. There is tremendous worth yet in returning to simply taking a few minutes each day and preserving some of our experience. Normal function is even an advance over nothing, how much more than entrancing knowing we have a responsibility to process.
Five questions to cycle through at the beginning and tracks of an examination session, five questions carefully designed to direct our attention into corners where it is too easy for us to forget — and where trouble can be most intense when we do.
To go through them in turn:
1. What am I actually concerned about?
This question recognises something rather unusual about how we operate: Often times, we do not pause to question what it is that actually worries us. This sounds odd. But certainly, if we are worried, one would be expected to pause rather quickly – and investigate why. But our minds seem not to work in this supremely logical-sounding way: they become distressed well before they are stirred to ask themselves why they should be. They sometimes continue for months, even years in the smokescreen of general concern before they charge themselves definitely with the imperative of pinpointing what exactly appears to be at issue. So, the question tells us to stop running and look back at what could really be causing our problems.
The word ‘really’ is used on purpose. We frequently utilise one fear to protect ourselves from another; the fear of a pending interview protects us against worrying about our relationship. We are concerned with the issue of money so that we do not have to worry about death. So it can be helpful to keep a supplementary enquiry in mind: He now wondered what worry concealed itself INSIDE me FROM the worry that was troubling me.
2. What’s currently negative about my life?
We can make a generalisation: we jaunt about as if we are much braver than it is good to be. But we often ignore everything that flows through our river of self, the slights and hurts, disappointments and griefs, because there are things to do. We do not want to notice how defenceless we are. We are afraid of being unable to afford our sensitivity.
However, stoicism and strength have their pitfalls. With the help of this question, we should give time to noticing that – despite our competent and strong exteriors – lots of smaller and larger things managed to hurt us today, like every day: maybe it was a joke not laughed at, just the partner is acting a bit cold lately, no call from a friend or incomplete approval of work by some senior…
We don’t have to be satirical about ourselves. Being fragile doesn’t make us weaklings. The fact is, our maturity has no greater proof than the extent to which we can attempt to understand ourselves as being as vulnerable and aware of it or easily hurt like everyone else on this planet.
3. Who and how has annoyed me?
We want to be polite. We are wedded to the civilised norms. We are a bit upset thinking that we may get to be so. However, at this latter point by actual sensitivity there too we must be of that courage. Every day we find someone doing something that really annoys us, in a basic sort of way – even if it is unintentional. If only we could articulate the injury our spirits would be lighter. What happened? What did it make us feel? What could we say to ourselves again for balance? We used to do this with a kindly parent when we were lucky and came back home from school. The inner child is always somewhat easily flustered yet soothable, as long we may now internalise this process and become careful guardians to ourselves by using our own inner adult.
4. What does my body want?
We have a tendency to store much of what we feel but don’t process in our bodies. It is the reason why we become victims of backache, shrivelled up and tightly closed senseless chests, knotted stomachs and flutters at the heart. We should constantly drain our bodies of the unfair emotions that have been imposed on them to live a more empathetic life around them. We should mentally scan our bodies from top to toe and ask ourselves what each organ might require: what are my shoulders aching to tell me? What Stomach Would Say? What does my back need? What do my legs crave? The questions may sound strange, but what is astonishing is that we would most probably realise that we have very tangible answers just waiting for us to ask.
5. What is still lovely?
Each day is filled with a variety of things that still please and fascinate us despite the many difficult parts. Often, these elements are small: morning light on the kitchen wall; a child holding a parent’s hand at the bus stop, a fig we had for lunch. But summed up, and given a second or two of our attention, they can be the most fortifying counter to any voices of despair. We tend to expect a pure blow of the senses from anything lovely; if not that, then we believe such loveliness would hit our minds without any supplementary promptings or assistance. The reality is stranger: we have to strive and extract joy from the useful things that may pass with no notice if we do not make a deliberate decision on the same. We have some wonderful aspects to our lives – but we can at first often inhabit them so cursorily and unwelcomingly that it doesn’t seem as if anything helpful could be hiding in their midst.
While we recognize that following artificial rules may seem unnatural, it is important to remember that our bodies and minds require certain routines to function at their best. If these routines were truly necessary, Mother Nature would have likely provided us with a way to naturally practice them. By regularly performing tasks like exercising and eating well, we can keep our bodies healthy. Similarly, engaging in mental exercises can help us process and clear out unaddressed experiences, leading to a healthier mind. Ultimately, it is crucial that we recognize the value of artificial rules, as they can help us achieve optimal physical and mental health.
When Socrates, apparently the wisest man of antiquity, was asked to define our highest purpose as humans, he offered a still-legendary answer: We should strive to be those who make no attempt at making sense of ourselves, until the end of every day. It is for us to work all our lives trying to reduce the scale of the darkness within us, trying not to push what was once in shadow so far back into it that we become a little less frantic and instead more joyful, creative and calm.
Explore online programs and 1:1 coaching opportunities at Kaspari Life & Business Academy to master these and other indispensable Soft Skills today so that you can confidently thrive tomorrow!
Katie Kaspari, MBA, MA Psychology, ICF.
CEO and Founder of Kaspari Life Academy.
Top-rated Author, Motivational Speaker, Mindset and Business Strategy coach.
Good Habits Design for Success and Happiness.
Shaping MINDS and building LEADERS.
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