This morning when I woke up, I called myself “good for nothing.” I was not welcoming the necessary suffering, on the contrary I even added a little. It’s rare now that I tell myself so. Yesterday, however, I felt good.
It happens when you focus on well-being. The problem is not your well-being, but the desire for it to continue. You certainly had this thought: “if every day, it could be like that!” And then it’s over.
So I advise all of you, every morning as soon as you wake up, to reset everything. And to observe, because every day is different: do I still have nightmares while I brush my teeth? Do I walk normally? Am I in my body? Everything is getting back in place more or less easily, and it is really necessary to discover every morning how this reassembly is going: maybe it lacks a little oil here, or that it is a bit rusty, there. And if we organize ourselves, in one way or another, to make this new day a continuation of the day before, then it’s lost.
It’s really good that you advocate this, because I see that every day I compare: am I healthy? Are my social relationships good? Otherwise, what have I missed, why today is less good than yesterday?
The drive can be totally different. It can happen to be the same momentum today as yesterday. But it can also be just the opposite: today no momentum, you struggle. All this is to be observed simply, and to be welcomed.
It reminds me of the catastrophic honeymoons that literature is full of.
Yes, it really is contrary to the movement of life. It is trying to make something static into something dynamic.
I would like us to talk about habits.
(Addressing W.) It’s interesting that you talk about this, because I’ve sometimes noticed little routines in you. And the notion of routine had aroused me. In thinking about it, I realized that habits as such are not a problem, but it is the attachment to habits that is one. As long as we are not attached to it, habit can help us and save us time. It’s still easier if I always put my keys in the same place.
Yes, if there is no emotional attachment, that’s ok.
When I get up, I do a number of things in the same order each morning, is that routine? For me it’s just functional.
I do not see how we could have a routine when getting up, and at the same time doing this reset we were talking about. For me, doing this reset means being open to everything that is there, to everything that can happen. It is opposed to the idea of having a pre-established plan, a routine. If I look back, I can see that there are a number of things that have happened in the same order. You would think it was a routine, but I did it in that order without it being planned.
In the morning when you wake up, if you look closely, it is really a big reassembly. When I wake up, sometimes I realize that there is a part missing here or there! Some days the intellectual part is functional, or it is the body. Other days is the fog and it’s really not the time to go see my mails. And sometimes there is an impetus, I have to go see my mails!
Is this the moment when you also reassemble your personal history?
Yes, that’s exactly it.
Sometimes when I wake up I do not know anything anymore, neither where I am nor who I am, and I can stay for a moment without knowing it, it is not immediate.
For me the question is not necessarily “where I am, who I am,” it is rather to reassemble myself. I can see them, the pieces. Gathering the pieces is not necessarily natural or immediate, especially if one comes out of a very deep sleep.
Yes. It would be nice for everyone here to start from scratch every morning and every afternoon after the siesta. It’s really amazing, as it can be different every day.
How do you integrate the constraint of the commitments that you took the day before? As far as I’m concerned, if I reset myself each morning, I may not get up and come to breakfast at 7 o’clock.
That’s true, but when the group is here, I do what is necessary to be there. On the other hand, I do not know if I will eat or not, for example.
It means that in the reset, you integrate your calendar, or some information that comes from the previous day: it is part of the data to taken into account in the reset.
These are existing data, imperatives. If there is an imperative at 7 o’clock, I take it of course, but everything else is reset.
Earlier, I took a nap. A. came to wake me up a quarter of an hour before the meeting. I jumped up, but I was not reassembled at the beginning of the meeting, it took me a long time before that was the case. I was present, but presence does not necessarily imply being reassembled.
That’s important. This does not affect body consciousness. Body consciousness is there immediately after waking up. So, L. came here half assembled, but with body consciousness.
Sometimes, it takes R. a week to get reassembled. (Addressing R.) At what percentage are you currently assembled?
Maybe at eighty percent, but that’s enough!
(Laughs)