Why "trying" to be present is stressing your nervous system
The mind isn’t something that needs to be wrangled. It asks for space from us as much as us from it.
I saw my girl crush the other day. It had been awhile. Maybe a year.
I loved seeing how she’d evolved. I loved how quiet and shy I suddenly got. I didn’t know what the fuck to say. I just let myself be led. My body took over and I responded like I was 12 years old again. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. I loved seeing how I replayed the interaction after. Because it wasn’t in self-judgment. It was more like wow, Vera. You still got it. That part that gets flustered and excited that my crush talked to me.
She made it so easy. She knew all the questions to ask, and I mainly just needed to nod, mmhmm, or shake my head - all while with a starstruck silly grin on my face.
I thought about how this was an act of kindness on her part. Not needing me to fill in any role other than just me, being there, completely in love with the moment.
The Exhaustion of Wrangling Your Mind
I tell this story because the other day, I asked a client what they wanted to work on. They said, “Staying present. Now. Faith.”
There was a thing looming in their mind.
There usually is, with all of us.
So they repeated the words, “Now, faith,” aggressively, still seeing the mind as something formidable that needed to be wrangled. Like “presence” was the escape hatch.
But neither now nor faith can be forced. Both require surrender. And this word, too, gets confused. With obedience, giving up, or apathy.
Surrender, as I see it, is the opposite. It’s courage in the face of uncertainty. It’s presence when distraction would be more comfortable. It’s rebellion in a world that sells rush.
Faith is the Courage to be Honest (Even When it’s Lonely)
Noah’s been home six days the last month.
It’s been hard on my nervous system. I miss the sounds of him moving from room to room. I miss his chaos. The open cupboards in the kitchen. The half-finished projects I used to take so personally. His constant jokes.
I laugh a lot less when he’s not here.
This last trip was unplanned. We thought he’d be settled for awhile, but God had other plans. God always does.
We talked about me going with him. I wavered because I was scared he’d be hurt that I didn’t want to. In the end we decided it made more sense for me to stay. We held each other more than usual before he left.
“Thanks for being my best pal,” I said.
“Thanks for being my best pal,” he said.
In that moment I knew we’d made the right choice. We love each other more, and better, when we’re honest. I used to think so many decisions were no-brainers, because of obligation, or duty. But how many years were wasted in resentment this way?
Faith requires us to choose what makes us the best version of ourselves, even if it goes against what would appear to be the “right” choice - to everyone else, to our own conditioning.
More and more I can see what most consider “right” is just what’s most common. It seems like it’s a no-brainer because it’s been repeated.
But values are not meant to be imitated. They’re meant to be discovered. And every time we act in accordance to our values, rather than in stride with the norm, is an act of faith.
Practice: Replacing “Should I?” with “Would I be Willing?”
Knowledge is the easy part. The next step is practice. The next step is feeling. Why are we given the advice of presence, now, and faith? Because all of these things take us out of the thinking mind. Practice is what schedules it into our nervous system. Feeling is what motivates us to repeat it.
The mind isn’t something that needs to be wrangled. It asks for space from us as much as us from it. Leave it alone. Let it leave you alone.
Replace “Should I?” with “Would I be willing?”
Let the feeling in your body answer that question.
The nervous system doesn’t learn by thinking - it learns by practicing. If you’re exhausted from the constant pressure of holding yourself together, book a reset with me.
