I recently wrote a text to the members of our community.
Initially, I wasn’t planning on sharing it publicly, but after receiving some good feedback and seeing how it changed how some of our students approach some of their problem, I figured I’d share it here as well.
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My trip to Portugal is coming to an end, and I will soon be back to the last bits of the Canadian cold before embracing the spring that will set in after my arrival.
That said, I've been reflecting more on what this trip has brought me these past days. It has brought me many things and provided me with the time and environment that I needed to think about how I want the next chapter of my life to unfold.
Many of those thoughts and reflections are probably not relevant to you, so I won't write a novel to share all of them—at least not here and not now. However, there is one specific thing that is very relevant and applicable to the work that we are doing together, so I'll share a few words on that.
It's about the importance of being present.
The more I age, the more I realize its significance. At the speed at which things evolve in our civilization nowadays, I think we will eventually come to a point where there will be a clear and noticeable difference between individuals who have mastered the art of being present and those who haven't. We can already see this difference, but it will be more obvious as time passes as the symptoms of “lack of presence” will be more noticeable. These are just guesses, however, and only time will tell.
What I mean by "present" is when you can slow down and appreciate the nuances and subtleties of the moment.
When your mind is rushing and bouncing from one thought to another, you can't do this. It's a bit like if you drive at 160 km/h on a small road; you're moving, but you're not seeing much of the details that are around you. Another analogy that comes to mind is if you're chugging a glass of freshly squeezed fruit juice; you’re drinking it, but you can't taste all the aromas and flavors as much as if you were to sip small portions of it instead.
Both analogies describe the same phenomenon, they’re just in different contexts and involve different senses. This concept of presence also applies to a context that directly relates to what this group is partly about: Mechanical sensations and pain.
Before going into the subject, however, I want to specify that the difference between a mere sensation and something that creates pain is in its intensity.
Either in the intensity of the stimuli itself, or in the intensity of how you perceive it. Differently said, what makes a stimulus physically painful is the same kind of stimuli that you're subjecting your body to every day, but with more intensity. What I'm trying to say here is that there is no such thing as "painful" stimuli and non-painful ones.
Between you and me, yes, there is a difference because some things hurt and some things don’t. But fundamentally, "pain" is just a label we've been using to say that a stimulus has gone past a certain threshold and is now creating an uncomfortable sensation. That said, the stimulus in itself is the same as any other; it's just more intense—or we’re more sensitive to it (and this can be because of many things, so I won’t go into this right now).
Now, this whole semantic and almost philosophical gymnastics isn't entirely the point of why I'm writing all this. However, I had to talk about it so you could understand the rest of what I’m about to say, and this is the important part:
If you wait until a sensation becomes painful to inform you that you're doing something wrong—that you're putting your body in a position that stresses certain regions more than others—then you're missing the point. The point is to be able to feel and acknowledge the small shifts that would lead you to develop pain at one point, but feel them a lot earlier than when you can label them as “painful.”
Once you start feeling these shifts of dynamics in your body, you realize that this whole idea of pain and sensation takes place on quite a broad spectrum, as opposed to being a binary thing where you simply have pain or you don’t. You want to feel and map this spectrum because that's the only way to fundamentally sort out our physical issues (as far as I'm concerned). If you don’t feel the nuances taking place on the spectrum of sensation, then it’s the same as if you need to go bankrupt every time for you to understand that you have a money problem.
But to feel this spectrum, you have to be present. You have to be "peaceful" in your mind—for lack of a better word.
As strange as it may sound, if you're doing an exercise and you approach it strictly with the intention of solving your problem, it won't work. It won’t, because this isn’t the goal of the exercises. The exercises are only tools to help you become aware of the nuances taking place on the spectrum so you can gain clarity on what's happening. Then, once you start being aware of all the small nuances, only then will you start feeling some changes.
So all this to say, get good at being present.
Get good at being calm.
Get good at not letting your mind get in the way of you feeling those nuances.
Something that can help you do this is not to approach exercises you do with the intention of "fixing" anything, but instead, gaining insight from them. You can accomplish this by positioning your mind around the question, "What is going on here?" as opposed to "Let me fix that problem."
Of course, you want to fix problems, but your capacity to do so will only be as good as your capacity to receive the right information about the problem.
So, be present.
Your mind and body will thank you later, and you'll likely have a deeper sense of appreciation for life as well.