Felicity Morse

there are times when being a sensitive, caring human being sucks.

It’s tempting to say ‘F**k it’, walk away, switch off. Give up on what you want and give up doing anything to get it. Say you’re not good enough, the world is f**ked up and it’s hopeless

Take a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Acknowledge that it might feel uncomfortable to slow down. Sit with that feeling. It’s okay. It’s a sign that now is the perfect time to check in with yourself and the right now.

Take a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Acknowledge that it might feel uncomfortable to slow down. Sit with that feeling. It’s okay. It’s a sign that now is the perfect time to check in with yourself and the right now.

Can you let the skin on your face relax? Let your tongue lie thick and heavy in your mouth? Have your shoulders sunk down? Is your belly relaxed?

Now begin to notice. Start with three things you can see. They can be mundane: this book, that chair, the window in front of you.

Press your index finger and thumb together as you name them under your breath.

Then focus your attention a little more. Notice three things you can hear. It might be traffic. Or birdsong in the distance. The sky might be grumbling; perhaps you can hear wind and rain. Maybe people are talking – there’s a low-level murmur. Listen.

Press your middle finger and thumb together as you name them under your breath.

Finally, notice three things you can feel. Maybe the texture of the book under your fingers. Or the feeling of whatever you are sitting or lying on. Perhaps it’s the feeling of your feet on the ground, in your shoes, or the air on your face.

Press your ring finger and thumb together as you silently name what you can feel.

You can do this exercise – three things you can see, three things you can hear, three things you can feel – every time stuff starts to feel too much.

A lot of us spend our days doing two or three things at once while half-living an imagined version of the future and occasionally analysing the past. That’s a lot of mental effort expended on fighting reality. Living in the right now from time to time

Take a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Acknowledge that it might feel uncomfortable to slow down. Sit with that feeling. It’s okay. It’s a sign that now is the perfect time to check in with yourself and the right now.

Can you let the skin on your face relax? Let your tongue lie thick and heavy in your mouth? Have your shoulders sunk down? Is your belly relaxed?

Now begin to notice. Start with three things you can see. They can be mundane: this book, that chair, the window in front of you.

Press your index finger and thumb together as you name them under your breath.

Then focus your attention a little more. Notice three things you can hear. It might be traffic. Or birdsong in the distance. The sky might be grumbling; perhaps you can hear wind and rain. Maybe people are talking – there’s a low-level murmur. Listen.

Press your middle finger and thumb together as you name them under your breath.

Finally, notice three things you can feel. Maybe the texture of the book under your fingers. Or the feeling of whatever you are sitting or lying on. Perhaps it’s the feeling of your feet on the ground, in your shoes, or the air on your face.

Press your ring finger and thumb together as you silently name what you can feel.

You can do this exercise – three things you can see, three things you can hear, three things you can feel – every time stuff starts to feel too much.

A lot of us spend our days doing two or three things at once while half-living an imagined version of the future and occasionally analysing the past. That’s a lot of mental effort expended on fighting reality. Living in the right now from time to time saves energy, freeing up more headspace – and with it more concentration.

We can harness the extra attention to refocus on what we really want and what is the best way to get there, taking the complexities of the current situation into account. Or maybe it turns out that without all the extra noise, the right now is actually pretty great.

Forcing the future ends in failure

We all want things. However, sometimes we get so fixated on the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ – especially if a certain blueprint was successful in the past or has proved fruitful for others – that we end up missing brilliant opportunities.

Blockbuster’s CEO passed up the chance to buy Netflix for $50million. Would Blockbuster have gone bust if he’d taken a moment to check in with what was going on in the right now with changing technologies?

It’s not just businesses that fall victim to this kind of thinking. A lot of us become unwilling to adapt to changing circumstances. A detailed plan can quickly turn into tunnel vision. We become over-at

unwilling to adapt to changing circumstances. A detailed plan can quickly turn into tunnel vision. We become over-attached not just to what we want to happen, but to exactly how that thing is going to happen and what it’s going to look like. I call it trying to force the future.

It’s easy to say that Blockbuster should have seen it coming, but I know in more than one situation I’ve been so absorbed in what I think should happen, or what I desperately want to happen, that I’ve missed what actually was happening. This result was

more mess and pain than needed to be

Press your ring finger and thumb together as you silently name what you can feel.

You can do this exercise – three things you can see, three things you can hear, three things you can feel – every time stuff starts to feel too much

Press your ring finger and thumb together as you silently name what you can feel.

You can do this exercise – three things you can see, three things you can hear, three things you can feel – every time stuff starts to feel too much.

.

I’m not suggesting you should just quit if a situation or a relationship isn’t perfect right away. I’m saying you have to tackle ‘what is’ rather than what you want it to be in order to move forward. This applies to so many things. We don’t face the right now of our finances. We spend time in friendships that have gone stale or make us feel bad. We ignore the health of our bodies and stick for years moaning about a job, just hoping it will change. We resist the right now because it’s painful or it doesn’t feel like it’s where we want to be. Yet when we can’t accept the situation as it truly is, we create drama for ourselves and others in the long term.

There’s also the chance that, maybe, once we slow down and come into the now, once we stop trying to get anywhere at all and accept the situation as it is, we find out that where we are feels pretty damn good and we could stop and think about just appreciating that for a minute?

Snakes and ladders