“Focus your attention on the fact that you don’t have time and let your acts flow accordingly. Let each of your acts be your last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will your acts have their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, as long as you live, the acts of a timid man.”[1] – Don Juan Matus
No Time to Waste: Precise Acts, Feelings and Decisions
During the lockdown we have been forced to change our habits and to stop eating out, going to the movies or shopping in stores, we learned to cut and color our hair, as well as cooking and finding new ways to entertain ourselves without the usual carousel of activities. The impression is that after that, if part of the population floated back to its usual life – depending on the degree of reopening of their countries – others may have discovered a new, different way of living and mixing with others.
From many conversations it emerged that, once they had taken a step back, people realized how overabundant the offer of distractions and “things to do” was and thought that, finally, we may not really need all that. What seemed to be important was being with the people they loved and being in touch with nature. Many came to re-evaluate what was really important, free from what they were accustomed to. This doesn’t mean that we no longer enjoy a dinner out, a drink with friends or new clothes , but now the choice is more deliberate, less automatic, more mature.
From this observation, as Don Juan suggests, we can magnify the lens and, in a moment of heightened emotions and utter chaos, think about how deliberate we are with our thoughts, our speech, our way of responding to what happens to us, and realize how much time and effort we are wasting.
Do Not Waste Your Acts
Do not waste your acts. Choose them consciously without uncertainty and fear. Act with the full knowledge of your last battle, choose your actions, your words, and the thoughts you lean on. Your life will therefore be free of shame, guilt and boredom. Instead, a sense of gratitude, fulfillment and satisfaction will seep in, a balm for your senses and a reward for your courage. A sense of being aligned with your heart. Familiarizing with this concept will give you freedom and the power of intentional choice. And by that we do not mean control: control over external circumstances is basically an illusion, but we are talking about the choice of responding and acting instead of reacting.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”[2] – Viktor Frankl
Start by breathing intentionally, follow by loving intentionally. Create a life of precise acts, precise speech, and precise decisions. Do not waste your presence in the world, do not exhaust yourself nor anything you get in touch with. Touch your world (objects, nature, living beings) with care, attention, and respect. Do not squeeze everything out until there is nothing left, nothing left in your effort to take everything you can. Precise acts are balanced between giving and receiving. They are free, autonomous; they are a contribution and never an effort. Our antennas are up right now, our perception heightened. If we close ourselves in denial, we are missing a lifetime of opportunities and we are making fools of ourselves.
Back to Basics: Intentionally Touch
Our hands are our primary instrument of compassion, and a primary means for creating connection. Many researches have demonstrated that human touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health.[3]
Touch creates a sense of safety and trust, decreases violence, promotes engagement, calms cardiovascular stress and triggers the release of oxytocin, aka “the love hormone.”[4] Touch is an essential element to create community and the feeling of love, and we need to strive to maintain it as part of our life. Now that the Covid19-related health safety measures have added upon the distortion of proximity already brought through technology, we need to be even more careful not to lose this gem of precious human bonding, this unspoken way to communicate our emotions and our closeness to others.
“Maybe that’s why I want to touch people so often – It’s only another way of talking.”[5] – Georgia O’ Keeffe
In order to connect with it, the trick is always the same: be present and pay attention. Pay attention to your single sensations when you touch sand, grass, your bedsheets, water, your skin or someone else’s skin. Delicately pass your hands on your pillows, your favorite dress, your kid’s hair. Be conscious of your fingertips typing on your keyboard or your phone. Feel the pressure of objects against your fingers and your palm, and then try to widen your experience by becoming aware of the sensation of your clothes, the sun, the wind, the warmth and the pressure of the body of a pet or another human who is close to you.
Enjoy the connection and the silent exchange you are having with what is soundlessly talking to you in that moment.
Back to Basics: Intentionally Love
Truth be told, this is step number zero…It’s the simplest and the most complex thing that can be asked for, and yet the one that encompasses everything else you do. It entails the release of our fears and our sense of self-importance and requires a deep connection with that place of peace we hide inside ourselves, the place that is so difficult to access beyond the noise of our thoughts and our emotions. Nevertheless, we want to mention it, because if we can start directing our attention towards that, if we can start opening up to the thought, the feeling or the intuition that this is possible and real, it could possibly change our life.
We’re not asking you to force yourself towards an “agenda” of socially identified kind actions, like charity, or volunteering etc. That is all wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But what we are talking about here is to start training the “love muscle” in everything you do, it’s to start doing things from that special place that makes everything just better, happier and easier, that turns the light on.
To start this “training”, try to remember a moment when you did something just for the joy of it, where “you” were not in the picture – or not the most important part of the picture, but all that mattered was the pleasure, the enjoyment and the heart-warming sensation of being engaged in that activity. Familiarize with that feeling and observe what was there on that occasion.
If you can immerse yourself in this sensation, notice if a feeling of Gratitude shows up as well. Very often, when we deepen our presence in our life and connect with that place of love, a spontaneous feeling of gratitude arises; for what we have, for the chance to be alive and being able to experience life, to be an active agent that can keep learning and growing from life’s lessons, and transform iron into gold despite the external circumstances. If this feeling hits you, treasure it, and remember it the next time you feel going downward.
If you are fortunate enough to be able to take a break this Summer, this is a pretty good gift you can give to yourself, and it will make your time infinitely more enjoyable and meaningful. Time will not slip through your fingers as it often happens, experiences won’t wash away, love will nourish you if you give it an opportunity to guide you through the hot, surprising days of this unique moment in time.
By Anna Gallotti and Selika Cerofolini
[1] Carlos Castañeda, Journey to Ixtlan – The Lessons of Don Juan, Washington Square Press, 1991
[2] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, 2006
[3] https://www.khca.org/files/2015/10/8-Reasons-Why-We-Need-Human-Touch-More-Than-Ever.pdf
[4] Dacher Keltner, Hands On Research: The Science of Touch, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hands_on_research
[5] Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, Red Wheel, 2020.
