The question of how to change your life comes to mind for many of us. But few people at the same time think about the fact that we are constantly changing anyway! Thanatotherapist Vladimir Baskakov reflects on this and on various ways of change.
Is it possible to live in a new way? In any case, it is impossible not to live in a new way! And in the most literal physiological sense. Judge for yourself: our epidermis is completely renewed every 2-3 weeks. The epithelium of the stomach — 3-5 days. Blood — 12 days.
Now many are worried about the lungs. Cells on their surface, in contact with everything we breathe in, are updated every 2-3 weeks, alveoli (air sacs at the ends of the bronchi) — every 12 months. Different organs are updated at different rates: the liver is updated every 150 days, and the heart — two or three times in a lifetime.
However, the conclusion is clear: change happens all the time! We just don’t notice them. The cyclist has to pedal quickly to keep his bike upright. As the Queen told Alice in Wonderland, you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place. Similarly, we, constantly changing, remain in the same place.
Anyway, we perceive this place as the same. Although, perhaps this is not entirely true. The fact is that you can experience something new in two different and even somewhat opposite ways.
Two ways to experience something new
The first way is to move in a new direction. Everyone today is familiar with the word “downshifting”, this phenomenon itself has become so widespread — giving up a career and, in general, from trying to succeed and striving for “life for yourself”, for spiritual values.
For this, some move to India or Thailand, that is, they literally end up in a new country. Many family crises and, more broadly, crises in relationships are resolved in the same way — one person leaves. Right or left. And the relationship ends.
But this method is not the only one, there is a second one! You can experience in a new way the place where we are right now. And themselves. We do not really notice ourselves in our everyday life. It seems to us that we already know everything about ourselves and about our lives.
But before moving to any point «B», it’s a good idea to find out where we are. And how we are there, in this point of ours, we are located. This is not so difficult to do: you need to pay attention to all this and increase your sensitivity.
Then everything that seems familiar and ordinary to us, including ourselves, can open from a new side — or even from several new sides. There is a Buddhist exercise for this: you just need to close your eyes and listen.
listen
There are more sounds than we think. Try to hear your heart beat first. We usually manage to hear it only when we run to the fifth floor without an elevator: then we notice it. But after all, it beats all the time, starting from the 21st day of our existence on Earth, when we are still in the mother’s womb.
We don’t remember it, of course, but try to go back to that original sound that reminds us of our life. Next — breathing: when we breathe, the chest expands, and you can try to catch the quiet rustle of clothes.
And now add the sounds of the street: what do you hear outside the window, only the noise of cars or maybe the voices of passers-by, or someone’s cell phone rang? And what about your neighbors, are they very quiet or talking, or turned on the TV, or they have a dog — and you hear how she clicks her claws on the floor up there, above your head?
Usually, even when listening, we hear only one or two sounds. But if you train and gradually complicate the task, you can hear much more, five, ten sounds from different sources! And discover that we are in the very center of a mighty orchestra.
be surprised
And after all, we have just talked about only one source of impressions — hearing. And we also have a taste, smell, touch, a sense of being in space … If we hear all this, then we begin to be surprised at the simplest. We become like children for whom everything is new and for the first time, who are interested not only in why the wind blows, but also in the very fact that the wind blows.
Adults are little surprised. Or they are surprised by some redundant events, extraordinary events, such as a plane crash or a terrorist attack on the subway. But we didn’t go down with the plane, did we? And it turns out that it seems that nothing surprising and entertaining happens in our life.
But when we tune our attention differently, the world again becomes what it was for us in childhood: it comes through the veil of our intelligence, our knowledge about it. After all, knowledge does not change. And the world is changing every second. And we rediscover it every second.
From this point of view, the situation with self-isolation is very advantageous. We can’t go anywhere, go to unknown countries. All that remains for us is either to die of boredom, or to look with interest at what surrounds us, to become interested in our own life.