Christophe André's quotes (sethmessenger.fr - Some short news to get away from it all).

#37466
The moods are the beating heart of our connection to the world Just because it's impalpable doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because it's subtle doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's impossible to understand. Just because the moods are all at once, and they evade us, does not mean that we will give up pursuing them.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37467
What is my mood? This is all I become aware of when I extract myself from my everyday automatisms, when I come out of the "act" and lets myself go to observe what is happening in me. The problem is to observe them: it moves all the time, a state of mind, and that's probably why we say "the" states of mind. We speak in English of stream of affects: current, stream of affects. The moods are the echo in me of what I am going through, or what I have experienced, or what I have not experienced but that I would have liked to live, or what I hope to live. It's also all that keeps spinning in my head after I think: it's good, stop, stop, don't think about it anymore. In short, moods are a whole world.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37471
Okay, little human, your emotions will naturally make you afraid and sad, but you will be saved by your moods (if you work well on them...)!

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37472
Life events and adverse situations induce more negative moods than their favourable counterparts induce positive moods: we get annoyed with the broken water heater, but we do not look forward to having our hot water every morning. Well, we should do it as an exercise in lucidity and happiness! Again, much work validates the existence of the phenomenon.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37473
Finally, negative moods push us to a rather slow, careful, careful, attentive, meticulous "procedural" in the jargon of scientists: step by step and step by step, as if walking on a minefield! They give us the impression that the time that passes is longer.41 While positive moods lead us to a rather fast, global and intuitive approach to the surrounding world, called "heuristic": we frolic psychologically.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37474
According to a classic metaphor in humanistic psychotherapy, it is about being the chessboard rather than the pieces: not trying to play blacks against whites, positive versus negative. But understand that both are useful to us. And that, without both, there is no party, so no interest.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37475
Instead of doing whatever it takes to go wrong, go out for an hour walking; if it doesn't work out, it can't be worse than continuing your ruminations...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37476
Ruminer is "to focus, repeatedly, circularly, sterilely, on the causes, meanings and consequences of our problems, our situation, our state." The term brooding is also used in English: "smoldering." Indeed, in rumination, one remains inactive, sitting on its problems that one keeps warm, under oneself, by making them grow ...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37477
In general, ruminations are self-centered. And it's one of their many problems: they make it easier to lock ourselves in, and thus prevent us from benefiting or listening to the opinions and experiences of others, who could help us get out of it. The more you approach a problem by focusing on yourself ("always to me that it will happen, what will I become, no one can understand, no one can help me... ), the more massive the damage in terms of inducing negative states.85 Reflecting with the eyes and experience of others, asking them for help and advice, all this will lighten the emotional weight of thinking about our problems. Otherwise it's not about thinking!

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37485
To know one another is often to disappoint, of course. But that is no reason to devalue or run away.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37486
Writing forces us to get out of the blur. It also cleanses up our illusions: at the time of the passage to writing, many ideas that seemed great to us as long as they were in our head turn out to be banal once lying on paper; many of the inspirations that seemed promising are mostly vague. The diary is often a beautiful antidote to intellectual laziness and the bloating of the ego: it forces us to work, to think. To be sorted too, because not everything is necessarily wonderful, in the great tumult of our moods.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37487
First of all, the effectiveness of writing cure underlines the obvious: to digest a painful experience, one must first recognize and accept it, to then be able to tell or write it... This is why denial and "emotional retention" have such a high cost in terms of damage to health, physical or moral. Then, the setting in words and narrative increases the coherence of events and moods that would otherwise have a taste of unfinished business. And the unfinished is psychotoxic, few of us are able to feel good with closed emotional files "untuged" (see the Zeigarnik effect we talked about earlier). Indeed, studies that compare talking, writing or simply thinking about painful life experiences clearly show that both writing and discussion do much better than solitary reflection. Why is "simple" thinking often so unsyered? Because it skids very quickly towards rumination! While it is much more difficult to ruminate in writing: the absurdity and toxicity of the mechanism would be obvious to us, while we tolerate it in our minds...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37488
So in your diary, describe well what happened, before (and sometimes instead of) wanting to lay the causes to rest; why, it will be for later, when the emotional activation has subsided...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37489
To be among things and with people," and then "make all things a blessing." Our work on moods does not aspire to anything else.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37499
So here is the holy trinity of the anxious: 1) the world is full of dangers and threats, 2) I am fragile, and those I love are fragile, 3) one can survive, or increase one's chances of survival, only if one takes all the appropriate precautions. Not doing so is unconsciousness. This perception of a dangerous world logically implies an extreme desire to avoid the slightest risk (it's like working in a bacteriology lab: you don't joke about hygiene157). Of course, the basics of this creed are not absurd and contain some truth, but only partly. And if they help with survival, they don't help quality of life. So we're going to have to modulate them: 1) it's true, the world is dangerous, but especially at certain times and places; there are others where we can feel safe, 2) it is true that we are fragile, and taking some precautions is not useless; but not to the point of taking all possible precautions, and living under a bell, 3) it is true that being careful increases our chances of survival; however, there is no need to turn this into an obsession that would then alter our quality of life, making us survive for a long time, but locked in the cage of hyperprotection.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37500
It is an anxious banker who calls his partner: "Hello? Well, here's the news of our business: it's simple, it's a disaster! I don't have time to talk to you about it right now. Start worrying, I'm coming...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37503
When we are anxious, the world is made up of only "missions to accomplish." So, living, simply, becomes a worry...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37504
Just understand that we're not all-powerful. That disorder and uncertainty are inherent in the living and mobile world to which we belong. That if we don't learn to tolerate them, we're going to have a strangely tiring existence.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37505
I have good news: the carefree world you dream of exists. And a bad one: it's called paradise and it's not for now. In the meantime, we will try to settle with this world, which is called Life...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37506
It's still better to increase your tolerance for uncertainty! How do I train? For example, by stopping overprotecting, over-planning. You can go with your spouse on the weekend without planning where you would go to sleep. Or organize an evening with friends without having prepared the meal in advance. Or let your spouse do the shopping for us (if we usually do them). Of course, it might not be as good as if we had locked everything as usual. So what? Is it that bad? Aren't we training ourselves to endure uncertainty and imperfection? How can we bear them if you never confront them?

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37507
Learning to accept problems Under the influence of anxiety, one would almost come to consider that it is not normal that they exist! That they are necessarily proof of incompetence (of oneself or others) or of an anomaly. Hence a negative attitude and an anxious perfectionism: the more I am subjected to negative moods, the more I will perceive any problem as a threat and not as a demand, a more or less normal difficulty, at least to solve. The very existence of the problem is considered abnormal. No doubt due to a certain pessimism and doubts in the ability to regulate it (failing self-esteem is obviously a source of anxious moods). But the trouble is that then the concern is centered on the problem (because we say that it is not normal, we do not accept it), not on the solution (because to access the search for solution, you must have accepted the problem and its existence). What patients who have been able to make progress recognize: "Rumination is not a solution," "I was always concerned, but not always effective," "I thought about problems all the time, but badly."

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37508
To really admit that adversity exists. And give him a place in our lives. Accept that problems exist, and consider them only for what they are: problems to be solved, not unacceptable and threatening tragedies. A flat tire, a failed vacation, a child repeating: these are problems of being alive and active, not dramas. I remember one day, on a trip, hearing an airplane pilot offer a little philosophy class to his passengers during an hour-long delay: "Hello ladies and gentlemen, it's your captain talking to you. The delay is due to the previous aircraft which had problems and we had to change. Apologies for this hour's delay. But it is better to be an hour late in this world than an hour in advance in the other... Accepting problems, adversity, is accepting - and preferring - life.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37518
The solution to avoid pent-up anger (which is the worst), is not the unbridled anger, but the dialogue and explanation. After a time of decompression, a time-out, say the Americans, a time to go out, breathe, even go for a run. But especially no punching-ball session, or other maneuvers to hijack the hostility supposedly romp: they only aggravate resentment and prepare the return of anger.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37519
Emotional draining and catharsis, it doesn't work...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37520
Madness of anger, wisdom of gentleness: some useful efforts. Delete anger and resentment? Hum... It seems more reasonable: 1) to consider that their occurrence is inevitable in any social life, unless they are very gifted or live outside the world, 2) that it is possible to learn to regulate them rather than hope not to feel them, 3) that the first skill in this matter is to accept to see that behind each of our resentments there is suffering , and 4) to want to suffer less...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37521
In his book From Anger, the Stoic philosopher Seneca responds to the objection: "But against the enemies, it is said, anger is necessary." It is never less so: in war, movements must not be disrupted, but ordered and docile. [...] The gladiator also protects him, it is the anger that exposes him. We always act better soothed than angry.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37522
Deciding to be slow to anger and not hate anyone. By exploring the twists and brains of our unconscious motivations, modern psychology has come to greatly underestimate the importance of our conscious decisions in the processes of change. But it is possible to decide to leave less and less room for anger and resentment in one's life. In any case, what is possible is to decide to work on it. Knowing that, as in all struggles against habits, there will be many relapses and returns of resentment: we must accept that it comes back regularly without considering it as proof that it is impossible, but simply that these returns are part of the process of change. In France, and more generally in Latin countries, efforts to deal with anger are hardly emphasized, and there are more books devoted more or less directly to the praise of anger or the right to anger, than textbooks explaining how to control it. In other countries, anger is taken more seriously: in the United States, for example, but also in many other places, there are specialized health centres and websites dedicated to angry people who want to be.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37523
Remember that there is no useful resentment. Gradually, learn not to tolerate them in themselves. For example, anger because you've lost your way on a vacation hike, or when you're going to dinner with friends. Start by trying to smile instead of getting angry. To do this, plan and anticipate the coming of the annoyance. To say: "This is typically the kind of situation where, in the event of a small incident, I get angry quickly. I'm calming down in advance now. I immediately assess whether or not it is worth getting upset about. I immediately accept this: losing myself is a normal life event. It is true that now, with GPS, we will no longer be able to use these small incidents as a means of strengthening our patience and wisdom. But, suddenly, we will be even more helpless on the day of the GPS failure ...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37526
Do not forget the sadness or fear behind our angering moods. For us, it is a question of listening well, below resentment, to the small voice of our original states of mind. Often, anger is a so-called secondary emotion, which obscures a fear or sadness that is in fact the cause of our suffering. The mother who saw her child pass through without looking and who scolds him before taking him in her arms, relieved: she felt anger when fear was her first reflex. The same goes for our grudge when we are shown our contradictions and mistakes: at first there is the disappointment - sadness and disillusionment - of having made a mistake. And then, of course, alongside sadness and fear as sources of anger, worries and what is now called stress.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37527
Do not forget his happiness and his inner balance. At some point in my resentments, ask me sincerely, "Do I want to continue like this? Do I feel good about these moods? There is a total incompatibility of the states of anger and those of happiness. This is the most radical incompatibility in the subtle alliances of moods: one can be happy despite one's sadness, or in spite of one's concern. But not happy and upset. Anger systematically disturbs harmony and connection to the world. To live happily (or nearly), it is essential to develop an aversion to anger and resentment. It is essential to feel more and more anger as a suffering: it is uncomfortable, but it is a progress...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37544
Pay attention to hidden obligations. As we have seen with regard to the states of resentment, we are always inhabited by subconscious beliefs belonging to one of the three families: "I should... "The others should... "The world should... Among the saddening beliefs (there are schools, worrying ones...), there is for example in the "I should": "Always be well, always succeed in what I undertake, always know how to react and solve problems... In the "Others should for me": "to be faithful, not to forget me, to be righteous, to respect me, to listen to me, to understand me... And in the "The World Should": "be just, coherent, gentle... These beliefs are legitimate and represent ideals for most humans. But the inability to endure that sometimes these ideals are not achieved can cause suffering in us, without us being clearly aware of it: even if we consciously know that the world is not like in our dreams, we dream of it unconsciously.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37545
Action is an antidepressant You better move when you are sad or depressed. Not just to "shake" as our entourage urges us to do. But because all these little everyday gestures (walking, tidying, cooking, taking care of your body, your environment, exposing yourself to light, social contacts...) are antidepressants. Homeopathic dose but with a real effect. Above all, inaction has a highly toxic, tangible and rapid effect. So, even if the direct effect of the action is diluted, light, delayed, at least the action allows to occupy the place of inaction, this poison! Not easy if you are depressed: while you no longer love this life, that sometimes it disgusts you, forcing yourself to act, it's a bit like swimming in a water full of algae. Hold, valiantly: we will eventually reach the clear water...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37546
Brainstorming also There is beginning to be work on so-called "cognitive remediation," a kind of gym-brain for people with depressive tendencies. It has also been shown that being confronted with varied and changing ideas leads to positive, moral and energy moods are increased: this is achieved in the laboratory by making you quickly read successions of sentences expressing different ideas, inducing an acceleration of thought (tachypsychia). And this can be achieved in real life by participating in interesting discussions, listening to speakers who are fluent in their subject, smart radio or TV shows, etc. The brainstorming is good for morale...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37547
Beware of bad habits that one does not realize "The big cockroach extinguishes the mind," Cioran said. And vigilance. In general, sadness pushes us to do what will feed it: rumination, withdrawal, deprivation of what can distract us or make us happy... If we want to fight, we must recognize this tendency as a symptom of sadness and not as a legitimate need. Especially don't wait for the desire to act. And do not expect pleasure from these acts at first forced. In short: agree to act without wanting to, and without taking immediate benefits. We understand how hard it is! But it's an effective way to reboot the wellness pump.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37548
Happiness is the only profound and lasting antidote to sadness. Or rather than an antidote, which would imply neutralizing or suppressing sadness, which is neither possible nor desirable over time, happiness allows to deal with it an alloy, like two metals that rub shoulders and give an original compound and superior to the two metals that spawned it (so bronze, copper and tin alloy). For example, the sadness and happiness of being parents: the sadness of seeing her grow up, and one day her children leave, is very real; some parents, for that matter, are not recovering well. Often, as a parent, you will feel this sadness even before the departure situation arrives. But if it is accepted and understood, it can also open its eyes and push to enjoy more intelligently the happiness of the presence of its children. To free up more time spent with them now. Their departure, one day, is virtual, even if it is certain; it is not the reality of the moment. The happiness of having them with you is real, and it is the full reality of the moment. This happiness of savoring a presence is thus made stronger by its passage in the bath of sadness, as in the past the photo films in the bath of the revealer ...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37549
In his Portrait of Don Juan, Marcel Jouhandeau noted: "There may not be suicide per se: you kill yourself only because you are so far away from yourself that you do not recognize yourself: you aim for a ghost, a puppet, a caricature whose promiscuity embarrasses or dishonors you." To which Montherlant added, "We commit suicide out of respect for life, when your life has ceased to be worthy of you."

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37550
Looking at the Statistics of the California Police, it was found that of the five hundred and fifteen people who had been prevented from jumping from a famous bridge (the Golden Gate in San Francisco) between 1937 and 1971, only 6% had subsequently ended up committing suicide: this had been verified later by the studies of their death certificates. And even if we included the deaths reported by accident, assuming that it could have been suicides in disguise, we found no more than 10% of the desperate elders who had disappeared from violent death. This is certainly more than in the general population, but it simply means that 90% of those who had been arrested at the last moment, when they were about to jump, had finally regained the desire to live! Or at least by losing the one to die...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37551
The mechanisms of social mimicry work for all of our behaviours, including suicide. It is not a modern phenomenon: Goethe wrote in 1787 the novel that made him famous, The Sufferings of the Young Werther, whose hero commits suicide because the woman he loves married another man. The novel was a huge success and apparently triggered a wave of mimic suicides in Europe at the time. We do not have the figures of the time, but this phenomenon has been studied today and confirmed. When a star commits suicide, it of course influences the frail, suffering from pre-existing psychological difficulties but also the general public, significantly increasing the number of suicidal acts in the following period.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37552
Please stay there. We need you down here, need poets who serve no purpose. Need sensitive people in what is sometimes called "a world of brutes". Imagine a world without poets, where there would be only brawlers, winners, bankers. Imagine a world where the only plants left would be thousands of square kilometers of tomatoes growing above ground under plastic sheeting, or plants like that. Well, the poet, it is like the forgotten waste of wasteland where wild herbs and wildflowers grow. We'll meet again in September. Friendly.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37563
Lucidity: accept your fragility but look further than she does. Put your body in a good mood: help him find calm and energy. Pacify your moods: hold your mind like a sail in the wind. And don't forget that you live in a strange world: think about changing it, too.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37564
The "strong" believe that the sensitive are weak, and they are surprised when they discover that they do not: they just try to be quiet, but also know how to go to the front with a vigor all the more effective as it is unexpected... Other characteristics of all kinds have been described in hypersensitive people: their conscientiousness, their ability to concentrate (in the absence of external distractions), their ability to detect minor differences, their empathy, their ability to remain immobile for a long time, their strong responsiveness to caffeine, and also the greater frequency in them of allergies and hay fevers, etc. This accumulation of details argues in favor of probable biological and cerebral specificities, explaining hypersensitivity. But the hypersensitive have above all a very rich inner life, intense imaginary worlds, since childhood. They need quiet moments more than others to reconnect with themselves, otherwise they experience a sense of alienation and rapid exhaustion. They find it difficult to support themselves constantly in group situations, and the need to regularly stand aside: during family holidays, they aspire to meet regularly alone to go for a walk, or read quietly in their corner. Hence the frequency in their ranks of artists and poets, who are pretty much all hypersensitive. This sometimes leads some to the point of mental illness. For there is also a dark side to hypersensitivity: anxiety and depressive over-risk.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37565
Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis describes her own fragility in this way: "Since my childhood, I have lacked an emotional epidermis. It's good for my work as a writer - I feel very strong - but bad for my daily balance. Later in the interview, Lewis said, "Even if there was evidence that antidepressants affect my creativity, I would prefer to continue them. When you've been a zombie for months, getting back to writing because of them is a miracle. And being able to write is even more important to me than the quality of what I can write... She knows what she is talking about, she who had to suffer from very severe depressive episodes.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37573
Not clarifying a worrying state of mind is a bit like not hanging up your phone after a communication: the line will then be busy and unavailable for other calls...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37574
To desire to remain calm in a conflict requires placing one's well-being and respect for others above the defence of one's interests; Wishing not to make yourself sick of anxiety about a late job means placing one's health at least as high as one's professional success; choosing a happy life requires a number of renunciations of other forms of satisfaction (financial or narcissistic), which will give pleasure but no happiness.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37575
In general, this underestimation of the emotional benefit of the situations we encounter is a classic in social psychology: we overestimate our stability and impermeability to the environment, and we see ourselves much more unflappable than we are! In reality we are disturbing, immensely: we can know and accept it...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37576
Materialistic disease. The psychological impact of these powerful mechanisms is discreet, because progressive, but palpable: basically, we are gradually transformed into impulsive fools. We could call this disease of civilization that strikes us the disease PAZAS: resulting plethoritis zappogen self-centered and stressful. Here we are: obese with goods, foods, objects; diminished in our lucidity and freedom; tempted to move on as soon as a problem arises - go see if I have an email, or if there is something to eat, or do some shopping to change my mind; focused on us - "I'm worth it," "I should never wait or do nothing," "I'm great, since the hosts and politicians tell me on TV"; and, finally, stressed, unhappy, frustrated, dependent, no longer understanding anything to ourselves. And going back into the wrong answers that the merchants tend to us: consuming to heal us... We must realize that the profusion around us is debilitating: it diminishes our intellectual and emotional capacities. It channels our energies into the useless and the sterile. Shopping, which is often the favorite distraction of many people, does not enrich us in terms of personal development, to say the least. On the contrary. For example, spending a lot of time looking for the "good deal" and the "best price" is nothing more than a loss of energy for later, more important decisions. This profusion of objects, activities, possibilities, which resembles a wealth, can in fact lead to a deconstruction of our mental capacities, by overstimulation, dispersal and theft of attention. Materialism prevents us from practising states of concentration, reflection, internalization: by zapping (multiple and effortless choices), by access to activities with zero internal involvement (video games, continuous streaming music). We are subjected to constant thefts of our attention: pubs in public places and during TV shows, interruptions by emails, phones, SMS. The ad makes us believe that these are links, to sell us machines to supposedly create a link. But, at some point, they are vacuum chains, cell phone conversations in public places show it.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37577
An example of this invisible pollution: the proliferation of plans on television. The speed of the images, the multiplication of the plans follow a market logic (keep the viewers captive to preserve the audience, i.e. the income related to advertising). There is a word - zapping - to describe what the channels fear, but no word for this multiplication of planes - fragmenting-stupidizing? This is all the more pernicious, because not naming evil is risking not recognizing it. On the way out, an unnecessary simplification of thought, and impoverishment; not that the long and complex are always richer, but they are sometimes necessary. And, again and again, this dirty habit of not fixing our thinking, of not muscle our concentration. To become psychic unstable, agitated jar, handicapped introspection and reflection (a little bit) thorough.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37578
An inefficient and costly way to take care of yourself: filling our brains with emptiness, our stomachs with dirt and our cabinets of uselessness, to compensate for the fluctuations of our moods. But why does it work so well? This is the genius of marketing and advertising: these jobs attract brilliant people, who are paid very well, much better for example than teachers, whose work is infinitely more useful. But it also works because these messages ("Don't worry, buy this") nestle in our psychological needs of "philtres of oblivion": life is often hard, sometimes forgetting it makes us feel good. But not wanting to see it, that it is hard, puts us in moral danger, while accepting it to face it differently can save our souls.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37581
Materialism takes us away from what makes us our identity and our humanity: the alarm was raised by poets a long time ago. But you never listen to poets. Stefan Zweig wrote of Rilke: "It seems wonderful to me that we had such poets before the eyes of our youth. But I wonder with a secret concern: will souls so totally devoted to lyrical art be possible in our time, with the new conditions of our existence, which tear men from all reverence and throw them out of themselves in a murderous fury, like a forest fire drives the animals from their deep retreats? Or our dear Thoreau, who went to live a year in the woods in Walden: "I think that our mind can be constantly desecrated by regularly attending trivial things, so that all our thoughts will be tinged with vulgarity. And also: "Once man has obtained the indispensable, there is an alternative other than that of obtaining superfluities; and it is to venture into the present life. Or Nietzsche: "Aren't all human institutions intended to prevent men from feeling their lives because of the constant dispersion of their thoughts? ».

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37582
What would they have said about our times? Poets and novelists have, as usual, seen the problem before others. It's there, now, huge, around us and in us. It is, as Cioran noted: "The nightmare of opulence. Fantastic accumulation of everything. An abundance that inspires nausea... ».

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37592
One of my favourite writers, Joseph Delteil, published a short book called Paleolithic Cuisine in 1964, almost fifty years ago. It was the era of emerging materialism and confidence in its ability to create a better tomorrow. Delteil, a little grandpa with a keen eye and an old velvet jacket, who lived happily almost Montpellier, wrote, surprisingly prophetic: "Modern civilization is the enemy. This is the age of caricature, the triumph of artifice. An attempt to replace the man in the flesh with the robot man. Everything is adulterated, polluted, rigged, all nature distorted. Look at these metallurgical landscapes, the atmosphere of corrupt cities (the coloured lungs of Louvre), the air and their birds stuffed with insecticides, fish poisoned to the bottom of the oceans by nuclear waste, everywhere the lifting of carcinogens, the mind-blowing speed, the infernal tintamarre, the great panic of nerves, hearts, souls, chain, chain I tell you... such is industrial life, atomic life. The great crime of modern man! yes this is just a cry: Fire! To the madman! To the murderer! Another of my favorite authors, Louis-René Des Forêts, wrote: "The overabundance has nothing to do with fertility. Nothing to add.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37593
You're going to keep going now. Now you've understood and accepted that your life is going on here, right now. That you must love yourself, that you can love others, and be loved by them, without trembling or holding on to you. That happiness is tragic, intermittent and indispensable. That sometimes you can be wise and sometimes you can't. You can go. Quiet.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37594
Of course we have to do and act in our lives. But are we well aware of all those moments when doing is running away? Of those moments when we embark on actions not to build but to avoid experiencing?

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37595
Life is what happens while you do useless things.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37596
We can take refuge, too, in ruminations or daydreams or hopes, live in our fantasies and expectations, without ever going out to take the air in the light life; light because without expectation precisely, with no intention other than to feel and observe what it is to be alive and present.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37597
You can be the victim of repeated theft of consciousness. Our time is characterized by "attention theft": interruptions in advertising, phone calls, SMS or e-mails, but also the habit of "availability", which has become a modern value. Unavailability and withdrawal can certainly cause problems, but to be always ready to interrupt everything to respond to any form of solicitation, is it not so absurd? In any case, this can lead to the fragmentation of our attentional abilities: the possibility of "zapping" if something does not suit us and thus changing our ideas will ultimately lead to no more ideas at all. We have talked about it, these constant demolitions of our attentional abilities induce a disturbance of our inner balances and our moods, which ends up being harmful to us.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37598
We often miss out on our lives. So often, we don't have to be in what we do! To be next door... Next to our happiness. All those Sundays where we think about Monday and we do not enjoy rest and his loved ones. Then those Mondays when we regret not having enjoyed our rest, and so we are not available for what we have to do; then we do it with difficulty and without pleasure. This leads to delays, complications, displeasure, and unpleasant new moods. Besides the little things not important. Whenever we don't listen to what we're told, where we're absent, elsewhere. Every time you don't know where you've put something away. All the times we went somewhere without thinking about it, in "autopilot." We arrive and we realize that we walked or led in a second state, in another universe: not in reality but in our states of mind. Next to the important moments. How many weddings, ceremonies, "great moments" crossed in a second state, where we focus on everything but the essential: the present moment. Because our mind is cluttered with so many things and worries that we are not able to control or dismiss. At times, it is almost our whole life that takes the habit of flowing like this, out of us, next to us, in front of us. And we follow by trotting behind, trying to pick up the pieces, and make them a coherent construction after the fact, by putting together memories, photos, and scattered reflections. We are victims of the remanence: the moment before devours the present moment. Or anticipation and worry: the next moment occupies our thoughts. The present moment no longer exists: drowned in nothingness. But to miss the present, is it not to miss out on one's life?

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37599
You can refuse to let life go. And lock yourself in a problem, or pseudo-problem, and not want to let go until we have solved it. We call it "neurotic perseverance," which is a fairly explicit psychological term. Here is a small example given by a psychologist of my friends in his book on consciousness, precisely: looking for his keys for two minutes is a suitable behavior; looking for them for two hours is much less so. And looking for them all day is no longer at all. It is better then to accept that they have been lost, to let the time run out or to move towards another solution than to continue to look. In this way, we turn many difficulties that should remain benign into major existential problems. These lost keys become the transient embodiment of my misfortune and my destiny as an unhappy human being and the victim of a contrary destiny. But life can go on, even if we haven't solved all our problems!

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37600
And then, as we have seen, one may simply want to refuse the pain of certain moments of life. Refuse to experience the experience of suffering, or unpleasant, simply. So, in the face of painful moods, we can react like a surgeon: to remove the problem we cut wide and we remove everything. To not feel this sadness or worry in me when I let myself go a little, or when I do nothing, I avoid letting myself go, or doing nothing. In order not to feel the unpleasant, I try not to feel anything at all. I'm blinding myself, I'm getting tough. I deprive myself of the taste of life because it was once bitter. These leaks will not change our lives, if they must be. They will just make us wait, hold on, until death - some pessimists will say that it's not bad enough - or until a subsequent explosion, a crisis, a depression. Not present, not aware, how could we then be happy? At best, be sometimes relieved, satisfied, not too unhappy...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37601
Consequences: "This life you live, it's just a dead life" The list of evils is long. Have the recurring feeling of not being in tune with one's life, not "good in one's life". Being parasitized by the intuition that we would be better elsewhere, but without really knowing if we would be better (and even: knowing full well that no, we would not be better elsewhere). Always want to escape: but it is ourselves who are locked in ourselves! We'll just move our cage somewhere else. Fitzgerald said: "The famous "Escape" or "flight away from everything" is an excursion into a trap." To feel that you are never in your place, that you can't find it. And end up wondering if there is one for us. To be inhabited, so often, by states of mind of boredom, incompleteness, dissatisfaction. Have feelings of emptiness. To lead the "existences of calm despair" that Thoreau spoke of. Being often immersed in gloom, in cockroaches linked to a daily life whose interest we do not see, in the grayness.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37627
Because if we are so interested in meditation, we caregivers, it is because it offers its practitioners multiple benefits. The official motto of the different schools is usually not to expect anything from meditation. Just do it and see what happens. I've always struggled with that nothingness of expectation. At least in the long run. I'm probably too Western. I understood that we should not expect anything from a particular session (unlike the relaxation that we expect to relax us): more often than not, we will not feel clearer or more serene afterwards. Sometimes, on the contrary, the meditation sessions will have revealed only one thing: our difficulty in meditating at that moment. But it doesn't matter: it had to be done, as the musician does his scales, the sportsman his exercises, the monk his prayers, knowing that it makes sense. I even recognize that giving up immediate expectations is very educational for us Westerners. And that tolerating, or rather fully accepting, difficult sessions or that we think are "failed" probably increases our tolerance for imperfection and failure in our lives in general. Which, given the world in which we live, is a healthy hygiene, and a vital vaccination.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37628
Meditation helps us understand the nature of thought. In reality we do not think: our mind produces thoughts, which we choose and s e l e c t, or that impose themselves on us. We just suffer and choose. Production escapes us, we only arrive downstream. Meditating makes us more aware of this: our brain as a thought tap, open constantly for better and for worse. And meditating therefore helps us to choose better, and suffer less, among the flow of these thoughts. The more regular the meditative practice, the less rumination tendencies there are.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37629
Meditation enriches moods and helps to regulate them. Meditation helps to raise awareness of our moods, to better understand their links with our physical sensations, to also to detect how our body conditions (tension, pain, hunger, fatigue) affect our moods. Thus the practice of mindfulness can help, for example, to make decisions (in complex situations in particular) because it improves our discernment of "somatic markers", those small bodily sensations at the source of intuition. The little pinch that one feels when one is about to say yes when one thinks no, or the discomfort in the face of someone who is lying to us or trying to impose a decision on us, or the discomfort in making a decision that seems logical but makes us uncomfortable yet: we may be better able to lend the ear, or rather the body , to all of this. Similarly, it is likely that meditation, by facilitating synthetic brain states, also facilitates problem-solving processes, conscious and unconscious: those mechanisms by which, having thought quietly about a question, the answer comes to us a little later.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37630
Meditation allows better concentration skills to work or think. Even if it is the opposite of what it was developed for: not at all to make us more efficient ... It is likely that mindfulness leads us to more creativity, through less self-censorship. Let it help us to think open doors and windows of the mind: to welcome everything before deciding.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37631
Meditation is correlated with well-being, and seems to be associated in its practitioners with a greater frequency of positive moods, and less negatives. No doubt life in full consciousness helps us to better open our eyes to the small pleasures of everyday life. The overall effect on all states of mind is all the more interesting since s e l e c tive attention to the positive is not an objective of mindfulness meditation, which simply advocates the observation and acceptance of all states of mind: but this simple position of benevolent observation, which then allows the examination and flattening of the states of mind, seems sufficient to rebalance their balance in a favorable way. And meditation also facilitates in this way the natural processes of repairing and digesting our sufferings: when we are tormented, sitting down, closing our eyes and indulging in the full consciousness of the present moment.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37632
Meditation facilitates a change in attitude and conviction. Because it leads to openness, curiosity and acceptance of what is. It facilitates tolerance of difference and understanding of others, better than mere information: because information only works with people who are flexible, receptive. A study showed that a particular form of psychotherapy based on acceptance and mindfulness (which we talked about) could lead to a better evolution of prejudice.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37633
Meditation helps to savor existence. Not only because it makes us more able not to drown in our ruminations, which we identify faster. But also because it helps us to enjoy the good times, to which it makes us more deeply present. The funniest study on this topic was conducted around a chocolate tasting: by making participants more attentive to what they tasted, they were allowed to feel more pleasure than those who were offered distractions at the same time.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37634
To introduce patients to the practice of mindfulness, there are several protocols developed to adapt to the world of medicine and psychotherapy: mbSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), and MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy). Currently, these programs have shown effectiveness in preventing depressive relapses and chronic depressive states, which is normal, as they are patients who have become large ruminators, and in preventing anxiety recurrences.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37635
Learning to wait: there is no waste of time, only time lived. Instead of getting annoyed with queues, waiting rooms, traffic jams, thinking that there is no time wasted, only time lived. Living is an opportunity that has been given to us, and an experience that will be taken away from us one day. Instead of wanting to be somewhere else, then, otherwise, let's be here. Fully. In the queue, in the waiting room, now I breathe, I feel what is going on in my body. Since I can't "do" something, I can "be": be there, be who I am, think of Montaigne and Goethe and others, who centuries ago understood that. I can do something else of my conscience than annoy myself against the wait (for example if my emails arrive slowly or if my web page takes time to load). Certainly, the impatience of the West has been a factor of progress (albeit...). But this progress has gone faster than our wisdom, and have taken precedence over us, made us slaves. Let us free ourselves from our unnecessary impatience. And let's keep the others, if there are any left...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37636
Presence in everyday life, small gestures When I eat, when I cook, tidy, tinker, repair... Do not do so by telling me that I could, instead, do something better, more important, more urgent. That may be true and, in this case, there will be a time to think about it and decide to organize my life differently. But, in the meantime, no need to pollute my present with this. I feel alive. I fully live in what I am doing right now: I am trying to reduce the place of this feeling of doing things "while waiting" to move on. When I read his evening story to my child, while I still have work, emails, while I have not yet dined: I rescale here and now. I am with my child, and what is important is that I am completely with him, fully. That, while I'm telling the story, I'm really telling it for him. Not thinking about anything else, hoping to be somewhere else. This moment, like every moment of life, is a chance and a blessing. If I'm not there at these moments, I'll mourn them later.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37637
Stop. Stop an activity, like that, in full motion. And observe what was happening in us: what state of our bodies, of our thoughts? I often try this exercise in times when I am under pressure: when there are too many things in my life to do, too many requests to which I have committed to respond. Like everyone else, I feel suffocated. So when the sense of urgency is at its highest ("a few minutes? a few seconds? fast, do, act, accelerate, save time! I stop. I force myself to breathe calmly, to turn my mind to an important detail: the sky, the clouds, my breathing again, the face of someone I love, a thought from a recent reading and what it has aroused in me. I get out of the urgent to take a whiff of importance. Then I start running again, of course. But I feel like a whale that has caught its breath, before diving back to the bottom where it has to fetch its food. Stop to make our mind breathe, especially when we are in a hurry...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37661
We need the gentleness and strength of compassion. The more lucid we are about this world, the more we accept to see it as it is, and the more we realize this fact: we cannot encounter all the sufferings we encounter in a human life, without this strength and without this gentleness. This may not be enough, and more energies will be needed, but without the joyful and living energy of compassion, we will want to flee the violence of the world instead of getting closer to it to soften it. All the wounds we observe around us, all those that psychotherapists collect in the secrecy of their consultations, are related to the lack of love, created or amplified by it. Lack of gentleness, understanding, kindness, kindness. Yesterday's shortcomings, which hurt us; today's lacks, that awaken these wounds. Their healings will be linked to all forms and expressions of compassion. It's as simple as that.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37662
Have self-fulfilling mantras. In Buddhist and Hindu traditions, the mantra is a very collected phrase that will be repeated regularly to permeate. It is a word from Sanskrit, which basically means "mind protection tool" (manas: weapon or tool of the mind, and tra: protection). We may have personal mantras such as: "Take care of yourself," "Don't hurt yourself," "Need to assault yourself," "No double punishment," "Do what you have to do," "Don't hate yourself." This may of course seem a little naïve or rigid, but in practice, such phrases can represent small automatisms of recall to order, when our inner demons bring to our minds opposite formulas, "self-destructive mantras": "You suck," "It's a disaster," "You'll never get there," "You don't deserve it," etc. Having these self-healing mantras regularly rotated in our minds during meditation exercises can also help automate them. Not to become robots, but so that the other automatisms, those that our past has deposited in us, are limited, until we can think about them calmly. To my knowledge, this approach has not been the subject of any scientific validation (or invalidation) studies. Simply, many patients seem to have spontaneously adopted it: "Now I have a little voice in my head that says, "Don't hurt yourself." Victor Hugo had said this more solemnly in The Contemplations: "From some profound word every man is the disciple."

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37664
Having heterocompassional mantras In the same process, to gradually antagonize our reflexes to judge or assault, remember: "People do what they can," "A person who assaults is a person who is ill, or who is afraid," "Breathe before answering." And for loved ones: "This person loves you, even if he is assaulting you.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37674
Making yourself happy: reasons and arguments. I once met a professor of happiness: all the more serious, this fellow psychologist had a dream job, teaching the psychology of happiness to Harvard students. Listening to one of his lectures, I was amused and especially interested in one of his economic comparisons: emotional bankruptcy, which reminds us that our human soul can go bankrupt, like a business. To remain solvent, the latter must make a profit: it is necessary that, at least over the long term if not at any moment, its revenues exceed its expenses. The same is true with our minds: as long as pleasant moods are more frequent or significant than unpleasant moods, we will feel that our lives are worth living. If not, it will be more difficult...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37675
Hence the interest, for those who wish to strengthen the 40% of their happiness that depend on themselves, to work to get closer to it. You can decide to work for your happiness. This is what Spinoza calls: "Seeking Joy by Decree of Reason." And, contrary to what many people think or say, many changes are always possible. Similarly, efforts to drive change are beneficial in themselves. For example, it has been shown that people engaged in personal development paths live better and longer. Our efforts to bring us closer to happiness do us good. That's probably why Jules Renard said, "Happiness is about looking for it."

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37678
Positive thoughts of the evening. This exercise is a classic of positive psychology. It consists of asking each evening shortly before falling asleep: what good times have I lived today? Often, the people to whom this work is offered begin by looking not for good times but for great moments, great joys. In fact, it is simply small pleasures that we suggest to evoke, in a simple way. We have work to show the benefits of these exercises. Benefits that seem even clearer when asked to focus these positive thoughts on states of gratitude: how are these good times that I experienced due to other people? Thinking then of the direct gestures that I benefited from, but also indirect: the humans who created and maintained the path on which I walked, those who wrote and played the music I listened to, grow the fruit I eat...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37679
In general, the urgency is noisy and mobilizes us; hard to resist him. While the important is silent, and lets itself be forgotten, quietly, very gently.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37680
A large study of five thousand people followed for twenty years has just confirmed this. What a happy news! It shows that happiness is gently contagious, and is transmitted through our social network: a happy person contaminates others even in the third circle of his knowledge. That is, your happiness will benefit your friends, friends of your friends, and that its influence will still be noticeable among friends of your friends. Beyond that, of course, there is not much left: happiness does not obey the laws of homeopathy. Warning: for this effect of induction to be tangible, the person you touch must live near you (one to two kilometers) and you meet it regularly: your happiness will not do good to those who live too far from you, or do not see you often enough.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37681
Waking up happy? "I wake up in the morning with a secret joy; I see the light with a kind of rapture. All the rest of the day, I'm happy. This lucky man from Montesquieu! Personally, it doesn't often occur to wake up in the morning with a secret joy. But it doesn't matter, I like to work there anyway, stubbornly. I had been obstinate for years when I fell, I don't know where, on this formula that delighted me: "The stubbornness to be happy." That's right, that's exactly it...

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37686
We cannot make our faults disappear, but we can become less fooled.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37687
I remember, for example, the wise words of a political journalist: "I do not believe in objectivity but in the mastery of subjectivity."

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37690
Finally, wisdom may be the art of the afterthy: instead of moving on, we first take the time to reflect on what has taken place, without fear that it will destabilize or cause us to suffer.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37691
When we feel uncertainty, we prefer to replace it with certainties, even exaggerated or erroneous. Wisdom is not about having certainties, but about tolerating our uncertainties. We look at them, we think about them, but we accept the existence and the evidence.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

#37692
Loving Simplicity In most traditions, wisdom comes through simplicity. For a reason that Paul Valéry perfectly grasped: "What is simple is always false. What is not is unusable. For there are two kinds of simplicity: one is poor, the other is rich; one is laziness, the other deepening; one stayed below complexity, the other went beyond. The first form of simplicity did not take the time to reflect: it is only platitudes and assertions free or all-round, based on almost nothing. It can also hide behind a scholarly jargon, behind the "false depth" that the same Paul Valéry mocked. The second form of simplicity is that which comes from a quest, a reflection, and a repeated, shared practice. It was from this simplicity that Leonardo da Vinci called it "supreme refinement." And in the face of simple wisdom, intelligence is not to say "It's too simple" and to stick to the arguments of principle, but to have the honesty to try: "I did it or not?" and to conclude on the facts, not to stick to judgments.

Christophe André
(States of soul: Learning about serenity)

Seth Messenger : Christophe André's quotes

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