The holidays begin. Many people are waiting for them impatiently, because the year has been difficult, and because they have been deprived of them for a long time. The franceinfo psychoanalyst helps us lighten our heads…
franceinfo: Many of us feel the need to “clear our heads”. What advice can you give us?
We always try not to take too many heavy and useless things in our suitcases on vacation, and we should, in the same way, manage to lighten our heads. Especially after a year like the one we have just had, which has been particularly emotionally charged. Because the more we have a head full of painful things, the more we need and want to empty it, but at the same time the more difficult it is to get there (a bit like falling asleep after a too stressful day).
How can we get there?
If you are lucky enough to make a total break with your usual life, by going very far, for example, you are very advantaged. Because one is immediately so stressed by what one discovers outside that the problems with which one arrived pass (temporarily) in the background.
When this is not the case, when we stay in a type of life that we know and, even more so when, like many people, we do not have the means to leave, it is much more difficult, because it is not enough to decide to forget your problems to achieve this.
But it is possible to trick them, taking care not of the damage they do in our head, but of those they do in our body, where they always create rigidities and tensions that cause discomfort. which weakens us, much more than we believe; but that we can fight.
How ?
If you regularly practice physical activity, you already know that you can “empty your head” in this way. If this is not the case, you must decide to stop neglecting your body, and give it a real place, starting by listening to it.
And you can do it without special techniques, just taking a few minutes for example, standing up, trying to become aware of how your feet rest on the ground, then how you breathe. Focusing on what happens when you inhale, deeply, and when you exhale, deeply.
It doesn’t seem like much, but if you do it while being really focused, it allows you to regain possession of your body (and therefore of yourself), and to feel more solid. And then you have to try to continue this listening to your body, in all the moments of daily life: by taking the time to appreciate the water in your shower, the taste of food, by feeling how you walk, etc.
At first it takes effort, and then gradually it settles down. And that makes it possible to regenerate and, from there, to reach out to others, feeling different, and to experience exchanges with them differently.
Conclusion: we take advantage of the holidays to remember that we have a body, and that it counts. Happy Holidays to all !