“The feelings of those who live in the fullness of life, directed outward and oriented inward, are developed and not dulled. They see the beauty of the world, hear its music and poetry, feel the aroma of every unique day, they are familiar with admiration for every moment of existence. Of course, the ugly sides of life hurt their feelings, but they are protected by the perception of its beautiful side.To be alive in everything means to be open to the whole gamut of human experiences.
It is a struggle to get to the top of the mountain, a struggle that is rewarded by the majestic view of it. Live life to the fullest- means to have a developed imagination and sense of humor, to maintain spontaneity and liveliness of emotions. Such people experience the entire spectrum of human feelings - surprise, awe, tenderness, sympathy - right up to the delight of ecstasy and the despair of the end.
Such is the mind of one who lives life to the fullest. These people understand well wise saying Socrates: “It is not worth living without thinking.” They always have something to think about. They are able to ask life their questions correctly and are flexible enough to allow life to pose questions to them. They will not live thoughtlessly in an incomprehensible world. More than anyone else, they live both by will and feeling.
These people truly love and sincerely respect themselves. All love begins with this, is built on the ability to truly value yourself. Life brings them joy and satisfaction, happiness to be themselves, just as they are. And they love others with understanding and attention. Care and love are the main content of their attitude towards everything. In their lives there are people who are dear to them, whose happiness and safety are important to them as their own. They are devoted and faithful to those they love.
The life of people who live fully, joyfully and festively is not at all like a long funeral procession, every tomorrow is new opportunity, which is eagerly awaited. Life and death take on their meaning. And when the hour of death comes, their hearts are full of gratitude for what was, for “what we were,” for everything beautiful that was given to them, for all life experience. A smile illuminates them when at the end of days they remember their lives. And this world will always be for them the best, happiest place for a person, because this is where they lived, laughed, and loved.
The so-called sweet life should not be mistaken for a full life. People who live their lives to the fullest experience both success and failure precisely because they live to the fullest. They avoid neither pain nor pleasure. They have a lot of questions and not many answers. They cry and laugh. They both dream and hope. The only thing that is alien to them is passivity and apathy. They say an energetic “yes” to life, and a resounding “let there be” to love. These people experience growing pains, moving from the old to the new; their sleeves are always rolled up, thoughts overtake each other, and their hearts burn with fire. They are mobile, always in the process of development - children of constant evolution.
How to take this path? How to join this dance of life in its entirety? It seems to me that all the wisdom of our days boils down to the following. There are five steps that must be taken to reach the fullness of life. They need to be done in the order suggested below, with each new step building on the completion of the previous one. But although any step is based on the success of the previous one and grows from it, this does not mean that each transition is made once and for all and there is no need to return to it: nothing is complete and complete. There is always some ideal ahead to which we should strive. Each of these five steps involves the emergence of a significantly new understanding, perception. The deeper this novelty of perception of one’s own and the surrounding life, the more possible it is to achieve the fullness of life.
Briefly, these five steps boil down to the following:
1) accept yourself, 2) be yourself, 3) forget yourself in love, 4) believe, 5) belong.
Obviously, all growth begins with the fact that a person accepts himself with a feeling of joy as he is. Otherwise, he will forever be involved in an endless and painful internal civil war. If we accept and see ourselves in a positive light, then we are already freed from the burden of doubts about whether others will approve of us, whether they will perceive us as we are. The more we accept ourselves, the more free we are. We are given the freedom to be ourselves with full freedom and without hesitation. But on the other hand, the desire to live only for oneself and to love only oneself builds prison walls around us. We need to learn to go beyond our “I” into the wide expanse of genuine loving relationships.
The sincerity of love and the relationships based on it will depend on our ability to truly be ourselves. When love takes a person beyond the limits of the “I”, he must find faith. Each of us needs to learn to believe in someone or something so deeply that life takes on meaning, a sense of our own mission, a personal calling. And the more a person devotes himself to this calling, the sooner he will be able to develop a deep sense of his personal belonging to the community, to discover the reality of community with like-minded people.
Let's now look at each of these steps.
Accept yourself. People who live life to the fullest accept themselves as they are, and do not live with dreams of tomorrow or hopes for the opportunities that may someday open up for them. They treat themselves with the same warm and joyful feeling that arises when meeting those whom we sincerely admire. Such people realize that there is good in themselves, starting with the small things (gait or smile), the talents given to them by nature, and ending with the virtues that they have developed in themselves. When faced with imperfection or limitations in themselves, they approach it with compassion, trying to understand rather than blame themselves. The source of a full life lies in the person himself; in psychological terms, this means that joyful self-acceptance, a favorable opinion of oneself, a sense of self-worth and honor become the initial attitude that directs the individual’s movement towards a full and comprehensive life.
Be yourself. Accepting yourself gives you the opportunity and freedom to lead. real life. Only those who have joyfully accepted themselves can take the risk and responsibility of being themselves. “I got the chance to be myself,” goes the popular song, but most of us wear different masks when playing one or another social role. The mechanisms of our former “I” operate within us, which try to prevent new injuries, but they also separate us from reality and dull our vision, depriving us of the ability to live. Being yourself means many things: freedom, the right to experience and convey to others your feelings, ideas and affections. This means thinking for yourself, deciding for yourself, making choices. Anyone who can do this has risen above the humiliating need to constantly seek the approval of others. Such people are not for sale to anyone. Their feelings, thoughts and decisions cannot be rented. “Be true to yourself,” is the life principle on which their lifestyle is built.
Forget yourself in love. Having learned to accept themselves and be themselves, people living in the fullness of being come to master the art of forgetting about themselves - the art of love. They learn to move beyond their own self to truly care for and take responsibility for others. The scale of a person’s personal world is determined by how wide and deep his heart is. The real world becomes our home only to the extent that we have learned to love it.
Fully living people leave the dark and cramped world of egocentrics, where they always live alone. They have developed empathy, the ability to deeply feel what others are experiencing. And it turns out that you can enter the world of other people’s feelings, as if they were “inside” their own world or they themselves entered the world of their loved ones. Therefore, the world of a person living in fullness suddenly expands, and the ability to perceive a variety of human experiences increases enormously. Such people become “people for others.” Some of the “others” are dear to them, and this brings that feeling of personal devotion about which it is said: “No one has greater love than that.” With their whole lives they will protect those they love.
Be loving person- this is not at all the same as being the so-called doer of good. “Doers of good” use other people as a convenient opportunity to demonstrate their own virtue, which they take great care to maintain. The one who loves learns to shift the center of his attention and interest from himself to others, to deeply care about them. The difference between those who do good and those who love is the difference between life on stage and a life full of real love. True love cannot be imitated. Concern for and interest in others must be genuine, sincere, otherwise our love means nothing. This is very important: you cannot learn to live without learning to love.
Believe. By learning to look beyond their own interests, people who live fully discover the meaning of life. This meaning is found in what Viktor Frankl called “a special life calling or mission.” It means dedication to a person or cause in which one believes and to which one can dedicate oneself. This devotion to faith shapes life and gives meaning to all efforts and actions.
Devotion to their life's task lifts such people above the pettiness and narrow-mindedness that overwhelm a life deprived high meaning. When life is devoid of such meaning, a person almost completely surrenders to the flow of his own drives in pursuit of sensations. All he can do is experiment, look for “ new fashion", a way to break out of the circle of boredom and monotony. Deprived life meaning, a person wanders in the wilds of drug hallucinations, in the fog of drunkenness, in a labyrinth of meaningless orgies; he seems to be obsessed with the desire to itch, even when there is no itch. Human nature abhors a vacuum. We must find a cause to believe in, otherwise we will spend the rest of our days trying to compensate for our own bankruptcy.
Belong. The fifth and final component of a full human life is “a place called home” and the sense of community that goes with it. A community is an association of individuals who “have things in common” and participate in the possession of the most valuable thing they have—themselves. They know each other and are mutually open. Each of them is for others. They give themselves and their lives to others in love. Those who live life to the fullest have a similar sense of belonging—to their families, to their communities, to the entire human family. There are other people around them with whom they feel good and communication with whom gives them a sense of mutual belonging. And they have a place where their absence will be felt and their death mourned.
When communicating with loved ones, these people find mutual satisfaction in giving or receiving. On the contrary, the feeling of isolation always impoverishes and destroys us internally, pushing us into the abyss of loneliness and alienation. Human nature is subject to an inevitable law: we cannot become anything less than an individual, but we cannot be simply and only individuals.
People are not islands. Butterflies are free, but we need the heart of another person to become a home for our heart. Only by having a home can you find the peace and tranquility that people who live life to the fullest have.
This is the appearance of people living life to the fullest. They have overcome these five stages of internal development that I spoke about, and main question The question they ask in life sounds something like this: how will I receive and bring the greatest benefit today, experience the most joy and pleasure from communicating with these people, and best solve the problem facing me. With their words and deeds, such people create rather than destroy, their attitudes are flexible, and they are capable of sustainable and mutually enriching relationships.
They are fairly free from physical and psychological symptoms caused by stress; and everything these people do is reasonably suited to their talents. They are able to accept with confidence an unfavorable change in the situation or make decisions that will change their lives. We should all strive to be like these people, and we can all become like them. Ultimately it is a matter of vision. It's all about our perception, which gives the soul a feeling of wholeness. And health at its core is indoor installation, life-giving vision.
Good luck"!
"The fullness of human life." John Powell.
For our reader, a book about. John Powell will seem very unusual and even provocative, due to main idea which the author carries through the entire content of the book. This idea consists in affirming the need for “self-love.” How is it possible, we immediately ask, isn’t selfishness, egoism the very main negative characteristic of a person against which we must always be on guard? Didn’t Jesus say: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself...”, “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life will save it”?
All this is true. All this is really said. But it is also said: “Love your neighbor, like yourself". One could argue that Powell's entire book is a meditation on this phrase. In fact, Holy Scripture speaks of self-love as some completely natural, inalienable quality of a person. Ap. Paul says, as if it were completely obvious: “No one hates his own flesh, but feeds and warms it...” Obviously, when speaking about self-love, Scripture does not simply remind us of the instinct of self-preservation. After all, it is precisely on this love that the second of the two most important commandments is made - the commandment of love for one's neighbor, about which Jesus says that it "similar" The first is the commandment of love for God. So, the question of attitude towards oneself is worth thinking about carefully. The author insists that correct self-love is not at all the same as selfishness and selfishness. An egoist is always concerned that he will be passed over; he is always missing something. He is always dissatisfied with what he has. Self-love is first and foremost self-acceptance, gratitude for the qualities that exist in me. If we must “give thanks for everything,” then shouldn’t we also be grateful to God for ourselves, for the fact that He created us and brought us into the world exactly like this. What each of us possesses as an individual is the very “talents” that the Lord gave us, expecting “profit” from us. By biting and biting ourselves for everything indiscriminately, won't we turn out to be rebels against God, dissatisfied with what He has given us? Hardly anyone will argue with the author who claims that if there is a constant inside us " Civil War", then there can be no talk of any love and attention to our neighbor. We will be entirely occupied only with ourselves, with our problems.
And vice versa - a calm and even joyful acceptance of ourselves as children of God, as a part of His creation, about which He said: “And now everything is very good,” will not this be a source of spiritual peace and happiness? After all, in my own way inner meaning this is very close to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Look at the birds of the air... Are you not much better than them... Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow... and Solomon did not dress like any of the them; if God clothes the grass of the field in this way, how much more so than you, O you of little faith.”
This, of course, is not about an uncritical attitude towards one’s sins, but rather about the principle “hating the sin, love the sinner.” Would it not be unjust to limit the application of this wise principle to our fellow men only? Perhaps it would be permissible to say, love yourself as your neighbor?
It seems that the basis of many of our sins, committed not so much by action as by inaction, lies precisely in our rejection of ourselves, tightness, constraint, distrust of ourselves and our abilities. Self-love in the sense in which Fr. writes about it. John Powell, as the Word of God tells us about it, will give us the opportunity to joyfully discover ourselves as God's beloved children, who have been given much more than we suspect. And this greater trust and such self-love can help us take the path of greater trust and love for God and neighbor.
Priest A. Borisov
Introduction WHAT WE WANT TO ACCOMPLISH
"Man glorifies God by the fullness of his life"
St. Irenaeus, 2nd century.
My brothers and sisters! I am convinced that the deepest and most restless desire of my soul is the desire to gain the fullness of humanity, the fullness of life. And therefore, what haunts me most of all is the fear that I might squander and waste a wonderful opportunity to live. My daily prayers change depending on experience and current needs, but one of them remains constant: “O God, my Father, do not let me die without experiencing real life and true love!" With the same hope, I pray for all of you that this will be fulfilled in your life. To the extent that I understand my motives, I can say that the desire to see your life full and comprehensive is what motivated me write this book. In my life I have encountered something good, inspiring, life-giving, and I want to share this gift with you.
In my search for the fullness of human life, there have always been moments when its special completeness was achieved, when it was deeply transformed. These are moments of special insight, moments of deep holistic vision (“insight”). In these very valuable insights, sometimes the whole panorama of my world expanded, and my participation in life deepened and intensified; such moments left the impression of a holiday, like the 4th of July." At other times, it was like a leisurely dawn, when the gift of life and light is not given immediately.
I also experienced the joy of recognition and a warm sense of inner kinship with the great psychologist Carl Jung when I saw that he introduced insight along with the three traditional theological virtues. He said that the most meaningful moments in his own life are moments of faith, hope, love and epiphanies("Man in Search of a Soul").
Of course, the value of insights must be tested in the laboratory of life. Any knowledge that does not change the quality of our life is fruitless, and its value is in question. On the other hand, if the quality and emotional forms of life change, one can trace how the corresponding change is associated with some new insight or perception. This was the story of my life, and I am sure that the story of all people is the same.
Let me now digress from the main topic and turn to a few personal examples. Among all the epiphanies in my own life that have profoundly changed her and me, I would like to name the following:
1) Disgusting qualities in myself and in others (propensity to lie, boast, gossip, irritable disposition, etc.) are, in essence, real cries of suffering and calls for help.
2) A good idea of oneself is the most valuable thing in the human psyche.
3) Success or failure in human relationships is determined mainly by the success or failure of communication.
4) Achieving fullness and freedom in the experience and expression of all our feelings is necessary for our inner world and meaningfulness of relationships.
5) I do not take personal responsibility for solving other people's problems. If I try to do this, other people will remain immature and dependent on me.
6) Love should not be conditioned by anything, otherwise it becomes a means of manipulation. Unconditional love- this is the only kind of love that allows a person to establish himself and grow internally.
All these insights, as well as many others, became the content of my previous books. It seems to me that it is worth listing and articulating some of them here, since they deeply influenced me, my way of life, my vision of the world in its different dimensions. Having seen the relationship between perceptions and life, having experienced it as an insight, I want to convey it to you in this book. Let's boil it down to one sentence: our access to the happiness of a full-blooded human life is determined by our personal perception of reality. Throughout the pages of this book, I will often refer to this personalized perception of reality as “vision.” As they say, "what you see is what you get!"
This is a question often asked by clients when they come to me for consultations. And I immediately have a counter question: why did you stop feeling the fullness of life? And what do you feel instead?
From birth, a person is able to feel life in all its glory. What a thirst for life is contained in the first cry of a baby in the maternity hospital, when the baby is just born. He still doesn’t understand anything, doesn’t realize it, but instinctively wants to take a breath of air to feel how life itself fills his lungs.
Where does this passionate desire to live then go? Where does the enthusiastic gaze with which we looked at the world disappear, when we still walked under the table and were surprised at the smallest discovery? We have ceased to be pioneers and explorers. When? Why?
Perhaps, once in childhood, parents decided that they did not need an inquisitive and active child, but a comfortable one. And later, as adults, out of habit, we make a choice in favor of convenience, abandoning interest. As a child, the question of convenience was a matter of survival, when it was impossible to receive love just like that. And the fear of rejection pushed us to the barricades in the struggle for parental love and, therefore, safety. What is the interest in life when our lives are in the balance if we are rejected because of our inconvenience.
Comfortable children are valued in kindergarten, and at school, and at college, and at work. Yes, we grow up, but often inside we remain comfortable children.
Try a simple exercise. Think back to last week. And try to roughly calculate for yourself, as a percentage, how many new things you tried in a week, and how many did you do what you usually do?
If at least 10% is new, then you are already among the lucky ones whose life does not stand still. If 30% of your life is new, then your life flows like a deep river. If 50% - your life is full of colors, and you most likely have no time to think about how full of life you live. And if your life is 100% - I congratulate you, you are starting new life and you are on the verge of enormous changes, and changes always bring with them a huge amount of energy, the main thing is to direct it in the right direction.
How to fill your life with new colors?
It often happens just start doing something new to make life sparkle with colors.
For example, you can choose a different route to work, you can turn on the light with your left hand rather than your right, you can cook a new dish, you can try the new kind entertainment or sports, you can go to sleep on the other side of the bed. All these little things help us wake up from routine and see life, and get a charge of energy that is enough to take other more significant steps towards a new and varied life.
For those who are ready to move on, I recommend make a wish book, where you can write down everything that you want to try in this life. These are not necessarily cumbersome, difficult-to-fulfill desires, like going to the Maldives and fishing for marlin. It could be something simple, but very unusual and pleasant. For example, go up and compliment a person at a bus stop, make love blindfolded, make soap with your own hands. When the wish book is ready, you can get down to business. Every time you feel bad, sad, lonely, hurt, hard, you open the book on the first page you come across and, without hesitation, do what is written there. Negative experiences, as a rule, are associated with either a feeling of sadness or guilt for the past, or fear for the future, but as soon as we do something new, and even pleasant, we switch to the present moment, in which there is no place for negative feelings. It’s as if we are breaking out of a vicious circle, getting a breath of fresh air, a surge of energy and strength, and also A New Look to what was bothering you before.
When our life is filled with new impressions, our brain trains to be active, many areas of the brain are activated, and life begins to acquire colors, we have a new vision of situations that seemed unsolvable to us.
The third step on the path to a new fulfilling life is working with limiting beliefs.
Take a piece of paper and write down all the reasons why you can’t start living a fulfilling life right now. For example, I don’t have money, I need to work, I don’t have a husband, a child, or whatever else is missing to be happy.
Now look at this list and imagine that you already have everything that you lack, and you have the opportunity not to do what you don’t want to do. Feel this state of internal sufficiency and freedom. How do you feel this state in your body? What feelings fill you? Now, in this state, think about what you want most now. Think and... do! Of course, do it, why think about it, because in fact, each of us is a sufficient and free person, and only from such a state can we accept correct solution In my life.
Such simple three steps can radically change the life of any person. Why do you think there are so few people who truly live a full life? We are usually looking for complex solutions for problems that seem difficult to us. And the solution is always simple, but this decision should become a constant filling of our lives, our new happy habit!
As an honest person, I have already dissuaded probably a dozen people from therapy. I hope they are happy now.
After all the main problem with psychotherapy - that people want to be sold happiness.
But for happiness there is heroin.
The market for psychological services, however, follows the demand, everyone sells happiness and positivity, energizes and so on “everything will be fine.” The easiest way to do this is in the format of trainings or retreats.
But if there is a hole in you, then this happiness will pour out of you in a couple of weeks. And it’s time to go to the next training, yes. (And there is undoubtedly a hole in you if your own happiness does not linger within yourself).
Besides, people love simple ways.
But for simple ways there is heroin.
You can position therapy as “a difficult but working way to achieve happiness.” But this will not be true, and I am an honest person.
Therapy is a way to regain fullness of life.
The fullness of life includes misfortunes. But also happiness.
The fullness of life is generally a questionable thing, but it is also the best of those that I have had and still have.
Everyone knows that “misfortunes” set off “happiness” and that you can’t be happy forever - it gets boring. But this knowledge does not help.
However, “fullness of life” is not “I promise that you will feel happiness, but in exchange for unhappiness.”
An important nuance is that this is completeness.
Previously, you had a price list of only two items, like:
Work: -50 happiness,
Game of tanks: +5 happiness per hour
In order to break even, you had to play tank for 10 hours after work. There are no other ways out.
When I was depressed (and not yet in therapy), I had a friend who said something along the lines of “oh, go sit in a coffee shop, it gives +10 happiness.” If you go 100 times, you will be cured of depression.
I went to my price list, found there “sitting in a coffee shop - see “wasting money on crap,” I went to “spend money on crap” and found there “-10 happiness.”
Yes, I had depression and addiction, I’m a normal person.
During the therapy process, you open a complete and honest price list. And he's big. Well, naturally, complete. Hence the “fullness of life.”
And there is such a choice right away! My eyes widen.
(In advanced cases, you can even choose misfortunes from the price list, in the spirit of “okay, something is bothering me today, let me suffer on the topic of “nobody loves me” and do it ironically, but they will still count it”).
Speaking in simple language therapists, the client receives ways to experience not only neurotic pleasures, but also pleasures of a higher order, but must make the choice himself whether he wants it or not.
Unfortunately, pleasures of the highest order require conscious effort, and who wants that!
It’s better to leave everything as it is - and 10 hours in tanks.
