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The Handbook for Bad Days

Page 19

by Eveline Helmink


  But what if you really don’t want to be in the present moment? On a lesser day, you might actually want to book a one-way ticket to a place far away from this fabled “now.” Because the present moment is painful, because you had better plans for this day, because the now is ruining your mood. Sometimes you simply are unable to keep your attention focused on the present. Then the present suddenly no longer feels like an open space but rather like a cage you have to force yourself to enter with all sorts of mental gymnastics. It isn’t surprising that living in the now is hard, nor is it something you should feel bad about. Our brain uses looking back and looking forward as survival mechanisms. They put your body and mind in a state of alertness.

  “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Really? Our brains happen to think otherwise. We are hardwired to store everything we experience, consciously and unconsciously, for future reference. Based on our experiences, our brain devises smart strategies, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, as devising strategies can also form the fuel for innovation and creativity.

  If you can’t manage to be in the present in a calm and natural way, it might help to see the now as the pendulum of a clock, swinging back and forth between past, present, and future. Eventually the pendulum will return to the center. Seen like this, living in the present moment is only natural. It’s the place where everything originates and to which you can always return. Your home base. Each time you feel tangled up in the past or lost in the future, you’ll return to the center. Without judgment or obligations.

  Living in the present moment definitely isn’t about a shallow #yolo (you only live once) attitude. Living like there’s no tomorrow can quickly escalate into self-destructive behavior, ranging from eating half of that second pint of Ben & Jerry’s (what difference does it make?) to other, way more ill-advised decisions. When you live from one thrill to the next to feel you’re alive, you will likely achieve the exact opposite. Thrill seeking is a diversion, a way to be anything but present, a way to avoid having to show up in your own life. When you willfully live outside of time, you drown out or numb feelings that are demanding your attention. Living in the moment is something different from living for the moment.

  // The Moon Did It

   Sometimes you have to look a little higher

  On my right foot, I have a tiny tattoo of the moon. I got it in a tattoo shop near the ocean, which breathes to the rhythm of the moon’s gravitational pull, during a time of back-to-back bad days. People often talk about the moon cycles as a reflection of our own life cycles: We watch as it is born as a new moon, waxes to its brightest, then wanes. There’s something about that rhythmic constancy that appeals to me. It’s why I wanted to wear the moon image on my skin: to remind me of the promise of change and ongoing cyclical motion.

  For the realists among us, saying that you feel a connection with the moon is divining rod and tinfoil hat territory, which is rather strange, if you think about it. Those who like to explain everything can hardly deny the effect the moon’s pull has on the earth. Nearly two-thirds of the human body is water. So it’s not such a strange thought that the moon, which pulls and pushes the oceans and causes tides to ebb and flow, also affects us. We aren’t separate from creation; we are part of it. We are an integral part of the system as a whole.

  Especially when things aren’t going your way, a ticking clock feels like an enemy. Another hour goes by without you peeling yourself off the couch; another ten minutes and you still haven’t taken that shower. Moon time is less harsh to us—it’s more poetic and forgiving.

  It’s a cyclical time that always returns to the start, again and again and again. When you live with the moon, it’s never “game over” and always “try again.” The moon dictates the rhythm of day and night, which has been the same for an eternity, but she herself changes constantly: waxing and waning. This pattern—new moon, first quarter, full moon—emanates consolation.

  Women, in particular, are sensitive to the moon’s energy. We all have a dedicated antenna built in: the average menstrual cycle and the time it takes the moon to orbit the earth are about the same: twenty-eight days. “Menstruation” has a Latin root, the word mensis (“month”), which is in turn related to the Greek word mene (“moon”). You might be a little more emotional as you approach your menstrual flow (the technical term is “menses”); perhaps your body retains more liquid. Maybe you have trouble falling asleep and your nights are more restless. All of this, of course, is not helpful on bad days.

  But there is a constant and wonderful aspect of the moon: Regardless of where you are and who you miss, at night each of us is looking at the same moon. It never leaves you behind, no matter who or where you are.

  Moon Inspiration

  NEW MOON

  time to let go and start over

  FIRST QUARTER

  time for courage, change, and manifestation

  FULL MOON

  time of abundance and harvesting what you have sown

  THIRD QUARTER

  time for clarity, choices, forgiveness

  // Constellations for Dummies

   Make it insightful

  On tough days, I can feel lonely, even when I’m surrounded by people. It’s a loneliness that’s hard to explain. It’s not so much about the physical absence of others but rather a sense that there’s no one who sees me in full, down to the depths of my soul. As if I’m an island among islands or a snowflake that doesn’t stick to anything. I can free myself of this feeling by remembering that each of us is part of a larger whole, a complicated cosmic fabric in which everything and everyone has their own place. We’re endlessly and eternally connected: Nothing is new; all of us are made up of reused molecules and atoms, and nothing is separate. Being part of a larger whole, however unremarkable it may make us, provides context. It offers the chance to choose a slightly bigger perspective now and again, despite what happens to you or which lesson life is casting in your direction.

  The objective of systemic thinking is recognizing context. Who you are and how you typically respond to adversity or chaos have been shaped in part by the system in which you live. It provides clarity to look at what is keeping you up at night in light of a bigger picture. Zooming out adds space.

  One of the fundamental systems is that into which you are born, your family. The presence or absence of your parents, grandparents, siblings shapes who you are from an early age. These are the people who teach you what is “normal” and what isn’t, what is desirable behavior and what isn’t. Like little baby bats, we’re sending signals to our surroundings. Those signals bounce off the people around you and shape your world. Your family is the first place where you receive (or don’t receive) love and gain experience with security, self-confidence, loyalty, and harmony.

  And whether or not you believe you can connect with your ancestors, their lives too will trickle down from generation to generation and shape who you are (there are immensely complicated books you can read on the subject, but you can also watch Pixar’s Coco to get an idea). Maybe you can come up with a motto for your family philosophy: “In our home, we don’t let anybody tell us what to do” or “In our family, we just don’t talk about it.”

  These are the types of convictions that, consciously or unconsciously, you will carry with you in your own life and inform the choices you make as an adult. As you look at negative emotions on bad days, it’s worthwhile to examine which of the feelings or convictions that underlie these days are in fact yours, and which more or less accidentally have stuck with you along the way. Stories like these can also be handed down from other contexts, such as your school, your group of friends, your colleagues, or any social groups you belong to. Each group of people develops some sort of shared identity—“We like to go out and party,” “Weird clothes are not done,” or “Keep your complaints to yourself,” to name but a few obvious codes—but which of those really feel intrinsic to you? How do you relate to the systems you’re a part of? Which of the thing
s you’ve picked up actually don’t serve you at all? Is there anything you’d rather shed in order to live a more authentic and pure life?

  You can examine this with constellation work, which offers a concrete method to illuminate how you relate to and feel about others, to help you determine whether those relationships and feelings actually feel right, and to try out how it would feel if you’d shift things around. Normally, you’d do this under the guidance of a professional. It’s pretty intense to lay yourself bare like this in front of a group of people, often strangers, who then visualize your system.

  It doesn’t immediately have to be the real deal, with actual people and spectators, however: I myself have sparked quite a few new insights by setting up constellations using Lego figures (yes, really!), and that felt intimate and safe. Oddly enough, those figures, with their yellow heads and square hands, provided clear insights that identified burdens from my family soul that I was carrying around and showed how they informed my behavior and thinking.

  You too can make constellations for dummies at home, by yourself, without pulling out all the stops. When you physically map out a personal constellation, you can simplify for home use the somewhat complex principle that we all are part of an interdependent system. Through visualization, you might get a better understanding of what isn’t flowing, which can give you a little breathing room on a lesser day. You can do this anytime, using all kinds of props. Perhaps you’ll find this exercise useful.

  Make Your Own Kitchen Sink Constellation

  Step 1: Formulate a question. As always, the more concrete, the better. “Why am I afraid to…” or “Why do I feel insecure when…” or “Why am I so pissed off…” et cetera.

  Step 2: Write down your question, draw a circle around it, and draw spider legs on it with stripes. At the end of each line, write a description of something or name someone who somehow plays a role for you in this issue.

  Step 3: Find representatives. These can be Lego figures, but also pieces of paper with names on them or drawings, stones, flowers, socks, if necessary—it does not really matter as long as you can assign meaning to it.

  Step 4: Arrange the objects around the problem in a way that feels right. Then quickly consider a series of questions: Who or what is close to your skin? Who or what is behind you? Who or what is watching from afar? Who or what is blocking something? Try not to think about each one for too long; do it quickly and intuitively.

  Step 5: And then? Well, a little philosophizing. You have just materialized your issue, and that can make things visible and change the way you perceive it. Is what you see right? Have any eye-openers come to light? What should be moved? Play with it.

  Step 6: When you move things, how does it feel? Does the new configuration or constellation give new perspective? Does it feel lighter?

  Think of this process as a way to direct your thoughts. And if it doesn’t work for you? Then you have at least diverted yourself by playing a little game.

  // Wabi-Sabi

   Celebrate the cracks and fissures

  With the number of serums, lotions, and creams for preventing or removing spots and pits that we all stock on our bathroom shelves, you would almost think that a smooth and wrinkle-free body is the holy grail of living a long and happy life. Our love for beauty runs deep and can, to a certain extent, be explained: Our human brain has become hardwired to see perfection as nonthreatening. What’s easy on the eye is also reassuring to a mind that is still inherently preoccupied with survival. We may have taken it a bit too far, though: The fruit we eat is flawless and shiny, the stuff we surround ourselves with is flawless and shiny, and we expect to appear in our bikinis equally flawless and shiny. Bluntly put, perfection is the option we most prefer, and imperfection is for losers.

  What this thinking actually does, though, is throw you off balance. It disrupts your harmony with time, with nature, and with your own soul. That is why we have trouble coping with bad days: They catch us by surprise. Why has life suddenly become unpleasant, imperfect, or ugly? How do I make it perfect?

  The Japanese ideal of wabi-sabi offers an alternative to this perfectionist mindset, and it really is an eye-opener. It can be easy to forget how much beauty there is in simplicity. The word wabi is hard to translate, but it refers to simplicity, stillness, and elegance—for example, simple shapes, in which the maker’s hand can still be recognized. Sabi is the beauty that comes with age: patina, cracks, rust, or moss, elements that tell the story of time and honor the life of an object.

  Wabi-sabi represents the essence of life, the cycle of nature; it represents space and time. In essence, applying wabi-sabi to your own life comes down to embracing the impermanence of things—not always wanting everything to be perfect, for example, or surrounding yourself with things that genuinely are a part of the course of your life and that remind you that everything is of a temporary nature.

  Aren’t people with a little frayed edge often much more interesting than smoothed-out types? And aren’t the scratches and cracks on your things what make them really yours? Celebrating imperfection in a self-evident way makes it less difficult to shrug off those scratches and cracks, because they are just part of life. It isn’t the end of the world. The rings on your tabletop are also a memory of a table full of friends, and the stretch marks on your breasts record your growth from girl to woman. Such rings and marks may not represent beauty in the classic sense, but they’re beautiful in another, unique way: They possess the beauty of imperfection.

  In the wabi-sabi aesthetic, many things are deliberately just a little off balance. Take the teacups in the traditional tea ceremony: They are intentionally irregular to remind us that nothing in life is perfect and permanent.

  There are three simple truths in wabi-sabi philosophy:

   Nothing is permanent.

   Nothing is ever finished.

   Nothing is perfect.

  Your imperfections make you who you are. Think about your handwriting, with all its crazy curls or slanted lines. It is precisely in that imperfection that you express what makes you you. The first fine wrinkles near your eyes, your smile lines. The first fine silver hairs, the scar on your skin. A soul that carries a life full of stories—that’s perfect imperfection.

  Looking at the world around you and at yourself like this will make your lesser days milder. You cannot copy, force, demand, or buy it—it’s an attitude of surrender and acceptance. You just have to wait and let it happen. In an inclusive life, one in which everything is allowed to unfold, everything belongs: darkness and light, intact and cracked. And there—there is where your freedom lies.

  // A Final Thought

  Before we part ways, could you please make me a promise? Promise me that this book won’t languish on your nightstand—because this is a book that needs to be lived with, and lived in. It wants stains between the lines, chocolate smudges and splotches of wine or tears (from laughing or crying; I’ll leave that to you). It wants you to dog-ear the pages you may wish to read again. It wants scribbly little handwritten notes in the margins. Maybe you can add your own tips and reminders about what you’ve discovered helps you most on the bad days.

  Because about those bad days… they’re here to stay. I hope that by now this isn’t a disappointment to you. I wholeheartedly hope that you’ve lost the urge to hide, fix, or numb those bad days, and I hope this book has assured you that all emotions, the good and the bad, are essential guides for you and your happiness—although some of them do a poor job presenting themselves as useful or beneficial. I hope you’ve learned that you are so much stronger and also softer than you’ve allowed yourself to be so far.

  You are truly courageous for allowing yourself to explore the bad days.

  Sometimes we need to break in order to really heal. Sometimes we have to fall to gain a new perspective. Sometimes we cry just to water the dry earth to help new seeds of happiness germinate.

  I’m really proud that you honestly answered no the other day when th
at person asked if you were okay. And that you smiled, knowing that you’ve got this. Because you do.

  With love,

  Eveline

  // Acknowledgments

  Writing this book was a lonely process, involving many Sundays spent wearing leggings and sweaters and not seeing a single soul, endless evenings sitting in the Amsterdam Public Library, surrounded by cramming students. Stolen moments on busy Wednesday afternoons. My escape to Los Angeles in February 2018, where I traveled to find inspiration and hours of undisturbed writing, was unexpectedly colored by my mother’s admission to a nursing home. It was a very painful period for me and my family. And it wasn’t the only time writing The Handbook for Bad Days was accompanied by actual lesser days. You can safely call it participatory authorship.

  But I was never alone. I would like to thank my two sons. I found “You will finish your book for sure,” scribbled on a Donald Duck tear-off calendar page, on my pillow one night, with a heart-eyed smiley added. Pepijn, you sweetheart, I love you and your observing eyes so much. And then Seger, who every other day exclaims: “This is the best day of my life!” I equally love you, and your ability to discover lightness in everything. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your continuous support and for providing an unconditional home. Even when I was making choices you didn’t necessarily understand, there was always love. I’ve come to appreciate that, contrary to being cheesy, it’s in fact a great privilege to hear again and again how you love me and are proud of me. And thank you to my big brothers, Jeroen and Matthijs, who are always there for me—and probably know me better than anyone. With you on either side of me, I always feel safe and carried.

 

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