How to Feel Alive - Jane Herman

just ran across a great article as i was researching for our series on philippians. it's called "how to feel alive". it's something we all struggle with as the pace of our lives picks up and we become overwhelmed. i've been there this week, but then today it snowed...and that seems to slow the whole world down doesn't it? i can't remember the exact scripture, but the book is Job, where God says to Job "can you make it snow on the earth to keep men from being able to go to war?" it's like God is reminding Job that our brokenness will always make us run, run, run, and sometimes God just says "okay, if you won't stop, i'll make the whole earth stop to keep you from destroying yourselves." i know how hard it is for me to sabbath, to rest, to slow down. i pray today you're snowed in, and able to relish in the present moment. this article is a great read with that end in mind. lots of love to you.

When was the last time you said to yourself, "I feel so alive"? Or do you more often find yourself saying, "Why do I feel so numb? I feel like a robot. I feel like all of the "highs" have been edited out of my life." The slide from excitement and anticipation of each day to boredom and dread happens over time and is often so subtle that it is hard to notice. Yet when you have arrived at the "dead zone" you know it and wonder how you got there.

The good news is if you are ready to wake up and reclaim your rightful sense of openness and wonder there is one clearly identifiable thing that can help you get back what you lost - and it's called "living in the present moment." Sure you have heard of it - but have you ever really thought about what it means or how to do it? Let's explore together.

Why is living in the present so important?

Life happens in the moment. In fact our lives are made up of millions of present moments, but most of the time we are not actually there experiencing them, we are mentally somewhere else - in the past (rehashing old moments) or in the future (anticipating future moments). When we withdraw our attention from the present, we limit our experience of it - we lose the richness of it in the "now" and as a result also store only colorless versions of it in our memories, if the impressions even make it into our memories at all. When you think about what you did last week or last month, how many moments really stand out? Can you re-imagine them with vividness and pleasure? Can you retrace your reactions and emotions of those moments? Feel their texture or significance in your life?

When you shut down your attention in the moment, you find that you can recall no "standout moments" as you look backwards over days, weeks, months, sometimes even years. Now you may be thinking that standout moments must involve momentous events (e.g., getting a new job or promotion, a birth or death, or a graduation of some sort) or involve a radical departure from your normal routine (e.g., a vacation to an exotic location), but such is not the case. You have the potential to create standout moments simply by bringing the full focus of your attention to the present moment, allowing all of your emotions their full play, and drawing that experience into your being as you would welcome a cherished friend.

"Yes!" you say. "I would like to experience the energy, involvement, and excitement of living in the moment, but it just isn't happening. Now What?"

Here are seven key things you can do to bring yourself back to the present:

1. Allow yourself to experience sensations

Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell - these are how you experience the world outside of you in the moment. But how much are you really noticing and how much is really registering? When you fold the laundry do you really smell how clean it is? Do you feel the warmth of the fabric through your fingers? When you wash the car to do feel the coolness of the water or notice the glint off the chrome? Why do you care?

With so much information coming at us, we tend to filter out much of it to prevent processing overload. And maybe it's okay to filter out the sensations associated with folding laundry or washing your car, but ask yourself the following: if you are not paying attention to these things, then what is it that your mind is focused on? Is it something else more important or enticing you are noticing about the world around you? What senses are you using and what sensations are you experiencing in the present moment? Most likely, almost none. Most likely your attention is focused in your head - on thoughts you are creating and rehashing - and most likely these are thoughts about what you have already done or need to do - not what is happening right now. Most likely you are ignoring your senses and living in your mental gymnasium.

If you hope to find your way back to living in the present you must begin to direct your attention back to experiencing sensations in the moment. The good news is that you can willfully direct your attention. Ask yourself "What is my favorite sensation?" Then find a way during your day to take moments to really experience that sensation. Better yet, find ways to really dazzle that sensation.

2. Reclaim your right to your emotions

As we are raised and socialized we are often taught to ignore, rein in, or deflect our emotions. Clearly this instruction is not all bad. There are many situations where it is nor productive for others to be exposed to the full range of our emotional swings. Yet in learning to temper our emotions all too often we go overboard - learning to dampen not only disruptive emotions, but also any intense emotion (even the highs). We tighten the screws on our "emotional dampers" and keep them operating full force in all situations and environments (even when we are by ourselves) until our emotional lives flatline.

Our emotional lives are meant to be rich and satisfying, but to many people emotions feel like strangers. Some people even believe that they have no emotions - but in reality there are feelings and emotions attached to every single thought you have. Feelings and emotions are a natural and spontaneous part of your experience of the present - that's why it is so important to reclaim your right and ability to feel and express them.

A second key step to living in the present is to reconnect with your emotions. Doing so requires that you recognize the difference between the "present moment" emotions of pleasure and pain and the secondary or manufactured emotions of anger, guilt, shame, depression, etc.

The cycle of emotion begins in the present, where only pain and pleasure are felt, and ends up with complex feelings centered exclusively in the past, such as guilt and depression. He describes the cycle of emotions as follows:

• Pain in the present is experienced as hurt.
• Pain in the past is remembered as anger.
• Pain in the future is perceived as anxiety.

Unexpressed anger, redirected against yourself and held within, is called guilt.

The depletion of energy that occurs when anger is redirected inward creates depression.

If you have a burden of stored hurt, it will disguise itself as anger, anxiety, guilt and depression and color the nature of your emotional reaction to things that happen in the present moment. To truly reclaim your emotions you must do what you need to do to clear yourself of past hurts, and then learn to experience, process, and release your emotions in the present as they occur so that you don't create new layers of pain that insulate you from a full experience of the present.

3. Get back to what's real

I read an interesting statistic the other day - it said that about 76% of the people polled said they want to retire in the country or in a small town (i.e., out of their current urban surroundings). What is missing from people's lives that so many seek a major change in environment for retirement? My sense is that these people are looking to get back to "what's real." Back to a pace of life where rich experiences are possible. Have you ever thought about "what's real" for you? Living in the present means being able to create your real life here and now - instead of waiting until retirement for your real life to begin. Ask yourself what makes your current life "unreal", "superficial", "constraining," "dehumanizing" and then ask yourself the opposite question: What would make my life more "real" in the present? Is it a different pace? A more natural and pastoral physical environment? Different activities? A different social group with a different set of values? Most people don't have the resources to reconstruct every aspect of their life to make it "perfect" - but everyone has the power to make adjustments to their actions and environment to bring them more in line with the reality of what is important by their personal definition. Retirement for you may be 5, 10, 20 or more years away. What can you do right now to make your life "more real?"

4. Put your habits in reverse

Habits are an efficient way to operate. Rather than having to think through each step of an activity, over time we can delegate our actions to our subconscious mind and allow the activity to proceed, once initiated, with little thought or attention. The downside of habits are the same as their upside - they are unconscious. If you are living mostly "by habit" you are not truly living in the present - you are running on autopilot.

I have heard the process of forming habits described as a process of moving through the following stages:

• Unconscious incompetence
• Conscious incompetence
• Conscious competence
• Unconscious competence

To really live in the present you must be willing to backtrack one step - to move some of your activities back from unconsciousness to consciousness. One easy way to do this is to perform a process or activity you know well in some slightly different way (e.g., by using the opposite hand than you normally use). This will help you to heighten your experience of activities that have become hum-drum habits and bring you more fully into the present.

5. Pare back your huge To-Do list

Being able to experience the present moment requires that you have the mental bandwidth to focus on, and appreciate, what is happening right this minute. I read another intriguing statistic the other day. It said that 80% of what we think about each day is exactly the same as what we thought about yesterday. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this statistic, but it feels about right when you realize how much of most peoples' mental energy is spent doing things like continuously rehashing their To Do lists. Massive To Do lists are huge enemies of living in the present. The first step to escaping the tyranny of your To Do is to get it out of your head and on to paper. Writing it down will release your mind of the duty to remember it all. The second step is to review your To Do list in the light of your commitment to live more fully in the present. If you really do want to be "more present" you simply must have less looming over you. Keep what is important, meaningful, or fun for you and then be willing to do, dump, or delegate the rest.

6. Stop multi-tasking

Simply put multi-tasking makes living in the present completely impossible. Experiencing the present moment requires that your mind and your attention be focused on what is happening right now. Each time you switch between tasks you move from one goal to another and your brain must recall how to do each new task. It takes time for your brain to reorient and disrupts your ability to stay deeply engaged and in the flow. Research shows that multitasking is inefficient and potentially dangerous (depending on the nature of the tasks being time-shared in your brain) and it also keeps you mentally juggling versus really experiencing the depth of the moment.

7. Change your relationship to time

How you perceive time is a big factor in how "present" you are able to feel. If you are constantly focused on the scarceness of time - if you believe that time is limited, that time is running out, that time is the enemy - then your experience of each moment will feel pressured. We all know that the pace of our lives feels like it is continuously accelerating - with ever more to do and more deadlines. But there are environments that you can be in, and activities that you can engage in, that will remind your brain that time can expand, flow, and even appear to stand still. Here are two examples. When you step out into nature (e.g., take a hike in the hills, walk on the beach, bike in the mountains, or kayak on a lake) you immerse yourself in a place where a different sense of time exists. The natural rhythms of nature do not feel rushed or forced, and they help realign your internal clock. Also, when you engage in activities that you truly love, and do them at depth, you subtly teach your spirit that you need not always skim along the surface and move as quickly as possible to the next thing. As you experience delving into the depths and getting absorbed in a process your sense of time will slow or disappear from your consciousness. Such "timeouts," if you allow yourself to take them, will help to change your relationship to time and allow you to live more fully in the present.

In summary:

If you can reclaim your ability to live in the present you will be much more likely to be able to say with enthusiasm - "I feel ALIVE!"