Time travelling to the Past or Future? Understanding the Importance of Living in the Present

It's a Monday morning, Hima, is sitting on her desk with some work but her mind is wandering to a time during last month when she took a trip to Goa with her friends. The sunrise, sunset, long hours of relaxing on the beach, the pleasant air, Hima could imagine it all in the blink of an eye like all of it happened just yesterday. 

Rahul, Hima's colleague is sitting right next to her with his calendar opened on his laptop and counting days to his upcoming trip to Shimla. He is imagining himself buried in snow, snuggling up in his hotel room away from all these excel sheets. 

Are you like Hima or Rahul?

At some point in your life, you must have found yourself being drifted away from the moment. So, why does that happen?

1. Reality is too damn hard: When the present life is too stressful in terms of work-life, relationship and it is difficult to catch a breath for yourself, here is when you will experience your mind wandering to the dreams of a pleasant vacation or to a time where life was stress-free. 
2. Absent in the moment: Quoting Andy from the last season of the popular TV show The Office "I wish there was a way to know that you're in the good old days before you've left them". When we live a life, not being present in the current moment, not feeling the essence of every experience possible, it is but obvious that we will constantly think about past moments or things we wish we could've done. 
3. Habitual: At times, drifting away from reality can be such a natural process that every time you face a challenge or are just bored, your mind subconsciously begins planning the future or pulls out a memory of the past. 

At any given moment of time, you can't change your past or predict your future. The only thing that is in your hands is the present moment. The present, however overwhelming it might be, is trying to teach you something. When things are not going my way, I always try to remember this quote "Instead of asking why this is happening to me, ask, what is this going to teach me?." Life is a rollercoaster of pleasant and unpleasant moments, and if it weren't for these overwhelming, sad, hopeless, frustrating, painful moments, the pleasant moments would not be experienced with much joy. In my personal opinion, difficult times teach you more about who you are and what kind of goals matter to you than happy moments of your life. If you are stuck in a series of unhappy life moments, try asking yourself the question of 'What is in the situation that I can control?', 'How can I make the best of the moment?'. The Buddhist technique of mindfulness is often prescribed by the psychotherapeutic community as a way to advocate living in the present. Mindfulness is a technique that helps you absorb every moment, without living a life just as a passing motion. If you find yourself drifting away, try to bring back your focus to the present by noticing your breathing pattern, inhale deeply and exhale slowly. You can also try to notice the smallest things about your own surroundings like the shape of the tree, the colour of the flower, the architecture of a building etc to bring your focus back to the present.

At times, imaging a happy memory of your past can help you endure your present. Visualization of a better future and a stronger self is also a technique often incorporated in the therapy setting. Imagination is a powerful cognitive tool, it helps you become more creative and enhances your contextual intelligence. However, in an everyday scenario, being absent from your present, be it enjoyable or painful moments, may not have a positive impact on your wellbeing. 

Oscillating with your Emotions? Learn the Art of Emotional Regulation!

Happy, Sad, Angry, Jealous, Disgusted, Contented, Disappointed, Embarrassed, Rejected, Confused, Amazed - Which of these emotions are you experiencing right now?

As human beings, each one of us goes through a range of emotions on a daily basis. When you woke up today morning, you may have felt tired to begin the day, after having your breakfast you may have felt energized, on an office zoom call, you forgot meeting a client deadline and got scolded by your boss in front of everyone which made you feel embarrassed, in the evening, the pizza delivery guy forgot bringing your favourite garlic breadsticks which made you feel angry, in the night, your friend decided to surprise you by sending some gifts from amazon, which left you feeling happy.

 

Emotions are what makes us uniquely human. It helps you communicate, shapes your behaviour and build meaningful relationships. Yet, somehow, most of us don't experience the full range of our emotions. In my experience as a psychologist, I have seen two opposing variations in how people experience emotions. Either they deny certain emotions, numb themselves of emotional experience or engage in distraction techniques so as to not experience emotions or they experience emotions in an uncontrolled manner so much so that it begins interfering with their work, relationships and cause a generic dysfunction. This is especially true for emotions that leave us feeling negative.

 

So, why does it become important to effectively regulate your emotions?

Emotions are the driving factor behind our actions. If we don't invest time in learning how to drive a car and suddenly jump behind the wheels, it is bound to cause accidents. We as a society are more focussed on the intellectual development of children and not on socio-emotional development. This, I believe is also one reason as to why India is experiencing such high rates of Depression. Many people out there don't have the knowledge of emotions, how to experience them and the right tools to regulate them.

Emotional regulation refers to the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their feelings. Emotional regulation can be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have effects at one or more points in the emotion producing process (Gross et al, 1988).

The skill of emotion regulation helps us modulate responses triggered by emotions, helps us focus on important pieces of information and filter out the suited emotional response. The tools help you develop a higher Emotional Quotient, self-control and increase self-awareness. As social beings, we encounter different stimuli in our environment that provoke an upsurge of emotions. Emotional regulation as an ability helps you actively monitor the situation, judge, reason and then decide a response. 

Basics to Building Emotional Regulation -

1. Emotional Literacy: Researching and knowing about different emotion words so as to adequately label a particularly emotional experience is the most basic step. This step is especially important for children, developing a rich emotions vocabulary at a young age goes a long way. 
2. Observation: One of the first steps to regulating emotions is noticing and labelling emotions. Understanding our triggers, stimuli, situations that evoke a certain emotional response. This should be a judgement-free observation that helps increase one's own awareness of emotions. 
3. Delaying Response Time: This step is to realize which emotions have an overpowering impact on us and can trigger negative consequences. For example - Once you have realized that whenever you feel angry, you somehow feel out of control and displace your emotions onto someone either by shouting, behaving in a rude manner or by breaking things. You can use this knowledge to delay your response time. The next time you feel angry, pause for a moment, take some deep breaths and then an action. 
4. Deep Breathing: Practice the 4-7-8 breathing technique wherein you take a deep breath for 4 seconds, hold it in for 7 seconds and then exhale for 8 seconds. Every time you experience a surge of emotions, this technique will help you delay your reaction. 
5.  Re-appraisal: More often than not, all of us are conditioned to respond in a certain manner to a particular stimulus. For example- having a fight with a best friend will leave us angry or sad in most instances. Re-appraisal basically means a re-evaluation of the situation and the response we have to it. This is a cognitive skill that can be beneficial for the long term well being as well. 
6. Self-Compassion: Being mindful to be compassionate and forgiving to your own self when experiencing negative emotions. It takes time and effort to become aware of and regulate emotions. Ensure that you are standing by and not against yourself in the process.

It may be difficult to pause the natural, learned process of expressing one's own emotions. It is somewhere the fault of our society, our education system, wherein we fail to justify the importance of emotions and the role it plays in our life. Becoming aware of one's emotions is one of the most important aspects of self-awareness and wellbeing. 

References -

Gross and Thompson,(2007): Emotion regulation: Conceptual foundations.