Peace is not a bargaining chip. So, it does not have its coming guaranteed after the war, and after the death, no one knows. But in contemporary times, peace can be easily understood as the opposite of affliction. The negative mental restlessness that comes with two very characteristic physical discomforts: anxiety and anxiety.

Meditation techniques brought in with great force from the East in the 60s, 70s, and 80s of the last century have brought a number of absolutely functional methodologies to lessen mental restlessness. The Eastern view says that the present is a fraction of a second between two breathing cycles and that in that fraction of seconds, problems do not exist. Apparently, the problems would be in the past or in the future, that in the perspective of these theories, would not be the present time.

This would give the possibility to the free use of meditative techniques to remove distressing thoughts from the mind, because they would be linked to the past and the future (this makes some sense) and not to the immediate present, where, in the end, everything would be right. When I tried to explain this to my grandmother, about 20 years ago, she told me: “irresponsible hippie thing. Only an irresponsible person will stop worrying about things. “

If you have read my posts, you have understood that, from the point of view of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), there are the values ​​that govern our behaviors and, therefore, our lives.

With that said, my grandma, now living in a beautiful old people house, where she can snatch the nurses with flip-flops and shouts, demonstrates with all her wisdom the values ​​my family carries: “the one who doesn’t worry about is not a trustable person”.

Leia aqui em português

This is a value, so it does not necessarily have logic. By the way, since I’ve never seen a worry about paying a bill or getting a husband to come home early, works properly, I find that quite illogical, actually. It is clear that the behavior that solves problems is thought applied in the form of planning, followed by a behavior organized by this planning process that we usually call “the action”.

Grandma Lola knows that “worrying” meant a lot of different mental activity, where, in most cases, she was struggling with imaginary situations, but another part of the time, she tried to anticipate what movements life would bring against her. It was a way to prepare herself in advance for these life movements.

We all do this, spend a good deal of our mental activity, reliving and rewriting past situations and creating fanciful stories with dialogues and mental images, 90% of the time negative ones. Another part of the time, we imagine future situations, usually negative or positive to the impossible, trying to control the unforeseeable future. We make a sea of ​​planning about the past and the future, always in incredible conditions that can never be realized.

This impossibility of accomplishment is frustrating and generates a negative evaluation pattern regarding life and yourself: “I do not have the life I imagined / I never do the things I imagined”. This pattern of non-completeness, of not being complete, fulfilled, would be the reason for the discomforts in the present, according to the Orientals.

Understand, I am not a Buddhist, I am not a Zen master. I do not have the patience for that, my business is to grumble, I carry Grama Lola in my veins. But, on the other hand, I perceive a sea of ​​polarities that, if approached in a center, can bring a very positive balance.

I am a grandson of Grandma Lola, cannot stop thinking about the past and the future, I have fear of look irresponsible. So, I keep this reserve of useless and absolutely unnecessary suffering so that my “conscience evaluates me as a responsible person.” This is useless simply because it is useless to think of something that we cannot solve in the present.

On the other hand, emptying my mind and letting life flow, it seems to me the right planning for starving and missing the roof in about a year. Then, I remember that Buddha lived under a tree for ten years, eating only what was left next to him, for ten years!!! Ten types of panic!!!!

They are two extremes, one very stressed and one very zen. Grama Lola, versus Buddha! The real infinite war! A stressed out, locked in mental images to try, through suffering, to control the future. Another, fresh head, letting life follow its flow, walking to live under a tree without a bath for ten years.

What would be the confluence point, where a balance between the two ends would be possible?

Well, despite I love technology, I have a rather analogical thought, so I would like to answer that question with the words: pencil and paper.

Planning is a mental behavior. That is, a kind of thinking directed towards the solution of a dilemma / problem that is guided through variables that can be mentally reproduced. How it is guided and, for it to be constituted as a plan, must have some logic and coherence, it can and must be organized. So, pass it on the role helps in its fixation and in the evaluation of the degree of reality that it brings in itself. Instead of mentally ruminating for hours, 10 minutes on paper are more than enough to organize, record and save the plan.

We call this the agenda! It works. Note down things so you do not keep thinking about them all the time and at the same time do not forget them. On the other hand, what is not on the agenda is pure fantasy, it doesn’t fit in reality.

Thus, if they are situations of the past that merit reflection, they can also be noted on paper. We call this a journal (and that is the reason they are so popular on the internet nowadays). We can even make three columns in the pages: 1 – Events, 2 – thought, and 3 – feeling. Maybe a fourth column could be, 4 – learning. If there is no learning, it is not worth spending time and life thinking about it.

This rule that, what cannot be passed onto paper does not need to spend the mind is very good. And, when you have a very fertile imagination, you can still create a blog on the internet and write short stories and texts with what’s left over from the filters.

Make the agenda, write the journal and write on the Blog can turn off the mind and help you to live in the present. If it is difficult, find a meditation that interests you and brings the mind into the present. Agenda for the future, journal for the past and a blog for delirium, the rest can be peace!

Raul de Freitas Buchi