If there is one thing that the lock down has confirmed is the need for presence
Presence not only of closeness between people, but presence to oneself.
Do you know someone who suddenly decided to change everything? Leave your job, maybe even an important job, to revolutionize your life with your habits, commitments, rules, to start over? Someone who gave up everything to pursue their dream? I happened to meet someone who did it, and I found myself several years ago. Every time they tell me similar stories I get a sense of liberation, not even my own freedom was at stake. As if I were reliving that sense of power I felt when I left to find out where my heart was, where I would recognize my story.
Today we tell each other what we learned in quarantine and how life will change. Yet despite wisdom, nobody can really say it. Who has already experienced what we are experiencing now? How can we imagine tomorrow?
The point is that we need to imagine it tomorrow, to be able to take a first step. We have our own reflections, assumptions dictated by hope, optimism, in some cases by cynicism and on those we will each try to draw the road. For what I am experiencing, in the distant stories of friends and colleagues and customers, what I feel we have in common is precisely the need to make choices to prepare for tomorrow, when finally everyone ... we will return.
And the choices will be important for everyone, whether they concern private or professional, individual or collective life. Everything will re-enter our life suddenly as it came out, but different. So much so that dreams have surfaced, the desire to ask - what is important to me? - it is no longer put aside. This is the right time and it feels. This time our values will guide us.
One person yesterday ended our conversation with this sentence: "I want to remember me".
We are in the midst of a transformation and adaptation and what isolation has given us is the confirmation that we need to be present. To listen to us. Usually we have a pretty clear idea of what we don't want, what we don't like. It is more complex to understand what we want. Even more, what we are willing to put into play to try. Right, try it, because success is never guaranteed. This is why it is often easier to stay where you are. As frustrating and sad as a known condition is, it does not require venturing into the new. The scary new.
Today we know that something will have to change. Whether it's giving up everything or just starting something, we need to listen to what we are, become aware of it, find out what we endure and reveal our true passion. And then finally act with courage and determination, avoiding to follow what seems easier. This is presence.
We are ready. We can take the first step: choose. Then the second: the first action. All the others will follow.
Some ideas for practicing presence:
Conscious and deep breathing. As slow and deep as possible. Do not breathe only in the chest or only in the abdomen, but feel the flow that passes through the whole body through the action of the diaphragm. Breathe through the nose and exhale through the nose. Counting helps maintain a balance between inspiration and expiration. Start with three minutes. Focus your attention on the breath like there was nothing else.
Spend five minutes a day listening. Music, natural sounds, silence. Listen paying attention to everything around us.
Recognize your emotions. Emotions must not be repressed, indeed it is right to let them dance. But it is important to understand them, and not let yourself be governed. - What happens to me? - What would I like different?
Write a journal. Winston Churchill, Richard Branson, Ernest Hemingway, Marie Curie, Frida Kahlo, Leonardo da Vinci did it. Writing helps us to clarify our thoughts. Re-reading allows us to see what we do with it.
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