“More here, less there.” It’s one of the mantras I created in 2012 when I first started to work on emotions full-time and to build iFeelio. It is one that I remember in my head and so often forget in my body.
I woke up this morning feeling tight again and stressed, almost as if I hadn’t slept and it hit me: I’ve been so distant. I mean, physically I haven’t because I have barely left my house in 5 weeks, but emotionally and mentally I have. My attention has been elsewhere, not on the sounds, sights, smells, and other sensations of my surroundings, but on business ideas, political decisions, friends overseas, and so many other things far out of reach.
I went for a walk near my old middle school and tried to focus on being more present. Again, the mantra isn’t only about being present but just shifting to have more balance between here and there. I started to walk more slowly, I heard more of the birds calling, I felt the sun shining, I saw the dew glistening, and I even felt nostalgia for how I used to do this exact path as a pre-teenager to school. I felt my muscles relax, I became more playful, and I felt more at home.
At home. The irony is that I cannot be more at home than I have ever been in my life. This shelter-at-home order happened when I am living with my parents in the house in which I grew up from 0-18. I know no other family home than this one. So, theoretically, I should feel the most at home as possible, and yet I haven’t. Last November I was Italy for 2 weeks and then Germany for maybe 1 week, then I came back here, then in January I was in Mexico for almost 2 weeks, and finally in February in Uganda for about 1 month. Traveling, exploring, interacting with lots of people—I felt very free. Now I’m back home and often yearning to be out, to be free, to be on the road. So I feel stuck, I feel distant.
I notice that one of the ways I try to be present is to go to a place that forces me to be present. In a foreign environment with a foreign language and foreign customs, I have no choice but to pay attention to what’s happening—everything is new. Here at home, everything is almost the same as it has been my whole life. Nothing forces me to focus on the moment.
In this way, I’m grateful to be home because it is almost one of the biggest challenges I can face in terms of becoming present: how to be present in a place where everything is familiar.
