Just being

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves” – The Dalai Lama.

Our culture seems to glorify being ‘busy’. From the constant advancements in technology bringing us to a world where one small device can open up a great deal of possibilities, to a world where we are constantly feeling we need to be ‘online’; sharing, liking, posting, messaging, snapchatting and uploading. Along with this, we are caught up in the rush of everyday life with traffic, to-do lists and responsibilities. We feel the need to be always doing something, busying ourselves, and playing catch up when we can. The reality is that while it is in many ways brilliant that we evolved into these multi-tasking people, has this come at the loss of our being? After all we are human beings and not human doings?

We rarely give time for others (or even a moment for ourselves) to have our full attention, as we’re often caught up on the treadmill of the mind filled with anxieties, pressures and plans – incessantly thinking about the past or the future.

When you do give yourself a break, do you feel a great sense of relief or do you have a feeling of anger with yourself, of time wasted being when you could be doing? When do you give yourself a chance to pause, to check-in with yourself rather than with others, to discover who you are and how you are feeling?

The unfortunate reality for the majority of us is we don’t give ourselves the time of day, not to mind our relationships or our own aspirations. This constantly technologically connected world has left us almost powerless to our own inner battery. When we do stop to breathe, be it by choice, a personal issue arising, or simply when the Wi-Fi breaks down, we are unsure of how to feel, how to act, how to just be.

The feeling of being alone without distraction for some people is daunting, which can lead to an obsession with various devices, places or forums to fuel this necessity of connection. However, being alone does not necessarily negate to being lonely, in the same way that being lonely does not mean you are alone.

There are ways to bring life back to you, to reconnect with yourself and celebrate who you are. Through various self-awareness exercises you can learn more about the real you, what’s important in your life, allowing you to understand other people, and how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment. Taking time out to invest in yourself is invaluable to your well-being, and certainly not a waste of time, after all, only you can know the real you and it’s the longest relationship you’ll ever have.

One way of identifying what’s important to you is to look at your values; these are concepts which feel good and right to us; which may be the reason we relate to some people very easily, and why we may feel negative towards others.

From the picture below, identify 10 values which you relate to, and 3 which you could not live without. Consider why you chose these values, and if you are living them as much as you can in your everyday life. If there is any value(s) which you feel you could devote more time into using, think of a way you could introduce it into your life more. For example, if you valued adventure, how could you bring more adventure into your life?! What action could you take today or this week to create that for yourself? This exercise is not about trying to change your circumstance, it is about building on what is already available to you.

Another way to reconnect with ourselves is through the use of mindfulness, which is paying attention to the present moment as it is, without judgement. Mindfulness helps us to recognise that you are not your behaviors and you are not your thoughts; it effectively trains your attention and allows us to step back and reflect on our thinking patterns. Viktor Frankl, a survivor of World War II, who wrote of his experience in his book ‘Man’s search for meaning’, and believed that true freedom exists in the ability “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”.

A way to introduce mindful practices into our lives is by pausing, sitting in a chair or standing, closing your eyes if possible and thinking of 3 things you can hear, then 3 things you can feel, and opening your eyes to 3 things you can see. This short intervention may allow you to come back to the moment and requires you to focus on one task. There also meditations available online, through the use of the Headspace and 1 Giant Mind app’s, and mindfulness courses available in locations around Ireland.

This feeling of re-energising ourselves may be daunting at first, but creating a life where we are aware of who we are, and just being in the present moment as often as we can be, can lead to a flourishing future.

“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” – William Ernest Henley

Find Leah on on Linkedin here or contact her via topgamecoaching@gmail.com