How to live in the 'now'.
Hi, welcome to my
blog on ‘Connecting to the Present’.
Previously in my Reclaiming Calm
series I discussed 'dysregulation', why this can happen and what tools we can
develop to bring us back to a
calm regulated state.
In this blog I talk about the
building blocks to present moment experiences. It's an alternative to
constant head noise; regretting the past, overthinking the present and worrying
about the future.
The 5 Building Blocks to present moment experience.
This particular way of presenting present moment experience
comes from the work of Ogden and Fisher in 2014. I have also
added a description title to each one. I renamed them stones instead of
blocks to save confusion with blocking out..
The building stones refer to 5
areas of information which help us live life connecting with ourselves, others
and the world around us. We live, work and function best when we are accessing
information from all 5.
A look at each building stone in more detail.
1) BODY SENSATIONS: The foundational stone.
All your physical body; inc. heart
rate, hunger, muscle tension, pains, butterflies, nausea, tingling, vibrating,
shivery, dull etc.
We gain so much information when we
stop and focus on our body, learning to become aware of our body sensations and
start to be curious about them. 'What is your body telling you?'
2) MOVEMENT: The action stone.
Your gross motor movements of your
arms and legs, fine motor movements of fingers and toes. Your postures, facial
expressions, body language, gestures, pounding heart, trembling legs or other
areas of your body.
As you focus on movements in your
body, which are conscious and deliberate and which are habitual and unconscious
you gain valuable information about yourself and how you are responding to
others and situations. For example, you notice your leg slightly
bouncing, focusing on it you realise you want to run to escape as you are
feeling unsafe and vulnerable.
Our 5 internally generated senses of; smell, taste, texture, sight and
sound.
It is so easy to take these senses
for granted. Until that is, we start to lose them, for example
when needing glasses or hearing aids. Our senses are continually working
to pick up information which is fed into our brains.
Becoming aware of this information
at its point of source means that you are able to connect with what you are
experiencing instead of zoning out and missing it. For example, you can
hear the birds singing, you can slow down and smell and taste your food.
You see that it was only a cat that made the noise that just frightened
you.
Our emotions are our responses to
'real-time' data coming from the previous stones.
This is different to feelings which
are more altered by our cognitive input.
Being aware of our emotions, our
nuances of tones, moods, irritations, fears, energy of anger, or of joy etc can give us valuable
information which we can then consider in our
cognition.
This includes our thoughts,
interpretations, meanings, beliefs about ourselves,
others and the world around us.
When we are equipped with
information from the other stones, this top stone can effectively organise,
prioritise, evaluate and act in ‘real time’ and to meet our needs.
Without the information from the other stones the cognitive stone is left to guess, spiral, feed
on outdated information and draw on irrelevant information from external
sources.
1) Our thoughts are often
'contaminated' by our environment; for example, other people’s comments, what
we watch on TV, what we pick up from social media etc.
2) Our beliefs, interpretations and
meanings of things are often given to us by others often in childhood and sit
in our cognitive stone. Without information from the other building
stones these become outdated and may not relate to our current wants and needs.
We can end up making decisions which are not right for us.
3) Our thoughts can feed our fears,
and will feed into our amygdala which makes us anxious. (see more in my
blog 28th May 2024 "Taking control of your anxiety")
4) Our thoughts can feed our
imagination as we imagine the worst.
5) Our thoughts are just thoughts,
they may be true or they may not be, without using the other information
available to you it is hard to know.
6) Living in our thoughts drains
our energy, we can often feel drained.
When sleep is affected by thinking this can make this worse.
7) To avoid our emotions, we
often try and desensitise from body
sensations by zoning or numbing out. Our chosen method of zoning out can very
easily lead to addiction. (see my blog on 31st July 2024 "zoning out
as an escape").
8) When we are not aware of the information we receive via our other channels
we can hold emotions, feelings, trauma and shame in our bodies affecting our
posture, health and body language.
Some of the advantages gained from using all the building
stones of information:
1) We can focus on the present,
moving from past regrets and future fears.
2) We can find joy and peace in the
moment.
3) We improve our decision making
as we have more information to work from.
4) We become more aware of our
needs and wants.
5) We can connect with our emotions
and become aware of our feelings.
6) We can express ourselves more
clearly.
7) We become regulated and calm
more of the time.
8) We learn to respond by choosing,
not just reacting to situations and people.
9) We become more alert to what
feels physically or emotionally unsafe
and we can protect ourselves.
10) We are more equipped to have
personal boundaries in place.
11) We can connect to others,
without losing a sense of who we are.
12) We have greater awareness of
ourselves, helping with self-acceptance and self-compassion. 
We learn to 'be' in the moment.
Instead of constantly 'doing' and
feeling like we need to do more.
I hope you have found this blog
useful.
Your comments below are welcome.
Maz
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