How to feel well? Finding psychological resources
How to feel well? In the circles of personal development there is often so much emphasis on trauma-solving and processing uncomfortable emotions. In such a setting sometimes that which fills us up gets left behind.
The emphasis in these areas is on processing the unfinished psychological affairs and processes, in order to complete them so that they can no longer run our lives from the shadows. But sometimes much time is spent on digging into unfinished processes.Everybody has these processes. They can often also appear as a glass bottom – when we think we’ve reached the bottom there is always another one under it – and we can go on and on and on.
Sometimes, in the whirlwind of all those processes that need to be worked through, to grieve, to let go, we can get caught up in that vortex so much that we forget about the joy of life. And it really psychologically helps us to be resistant to adversity in life. It is an important psychological resource.
Psychological resources sometimes tend to be forgotten in psychological development.
What is it that fills us up? What is it that feeds us and gives us joy in life?What does it feel like to be happy, right now, at this very moment, with everything else that is happening in our lives?
When was the last time that we did something that brought us pure joy?
Swam in a river? Played with a ball on the grass? Sat by the river and watched the sunset? Cycled late at night with the wind blowing in our hair?
When was the last time we danced to our favorite song? Sometimes we forget about the joy as a resources due to other overwhelming processes. We forget that there are things that bring us abundance of joy.
What we are looking for is that inner feeling of satisfaction that Michael Csikszentmihalyi described as “flow” – a feeling of great absorption of the world, engagement, fulfillment during which some usual structures within which we move such as time, food and “ego-self” seem to not exist.
We are looking for that what the Zen masters would call, being “one” with the world.
It is those moments that we recharge in.
Yes, life can be hard and complicated and sad. And we are overworked and underpaid, and there is inflation, the price of fuel is rising, and there is a war in Ukraine and climate change and…we sometimes cannot seem to breathe because of the dense forest that is visible on the horizon.
But let’s take a deep breath and return to the present moment.
And let’s start by asking ourselves: what are the three things that gave us that feeling of inner fulfillment today?
How can we find even more of them? Here and now, today.
Izvor: Pexels
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