Rosie Brogan talks to Sydney-based Clinical Psychologist and author and founder of The Happiness Institute, Tim Sharp, about the importance of living in the moment.
RB: What’s unhealthy about thinking over things from our past?
Tim Sharp: If you spend too much time living in the past, particularly if you dwell on the past in a negative way, in a worst-case scenario — that leads to depression.
You can reminisce in a positive way; that’s something we encourage from a positive psychology perspective. But more often than not, when people are dwelling on the past they tend to be thinking about the things they did wrong, or the things that didn’t work out.
And that doesn’t help for a number of reasons. One, it contributes to negative emotions and things like depression, and two, you can’t actually change things. What happened last year, or yesterday has happened. And there’s not a lot you can do about it.
Typically people who spend too much time in the past tend to experience sadness and depression. While people who spend too much time in the future tend to experience stress and anxiety.
RB: What are some ways to change the habit?
TS: Reflecting on the past doesn’t have to be negative thing if we do it in a learning type of a way. Such as, “how can I not make that kind of mistake again? What did I do wrong, what’s the lesson here?” That sort of stuff – that’s useful and constructive.
But even then, you don’t want to do too much of that. It’s happened, it’s over. Let’s move on.
It’s a bit of a balancing act. We want to plan for the future, we want to learn from the past, but we want to spend most of our time living in, and enjoying, the moment.
RB: So we can find ways to bring our thoughts into the here-and-now…
TS: We need to realise that the only time we can ever really do something constructive is in the here-and-now; that’s the only time we can ever really experience happiness. It’s the only time we can every really make a decision. It’s the only time we can ever do something — take a positive step towards achieving a goal or some sort of success or whatever.
One of the ways of getting better at living in the moment is to practice meditation.
People who meditate on a regular basis are healthier. They live longer. But anyone who’s ever tried it will know how difficult it is because of the internal and external distractions. So externally, there are noises, there are phones ringing, there’s Blackberries buzzing, there are emails beeping – TVs and phones and traffic and all sorts of other things that can distract our attention away from what’s really important.
Start by limiting those distractions: turn off your phone & computer. Close out the noise.
Living in the moment is very much a skill. It’s an attention-focusing skill that you need to practice.
Tim Sharp is a Sydney-based Clinical Psychologist, author and founder of The Happiness Institute.
Reference available upon request