To Be Centered, To Be In Your Center: What Does It Mean?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Both in psychology and in various spiritual and bodily practices one can often hear - "be in your center, be centered." Once upon a time, as a beginner, it was completely incomprehensible to me what this meant. Time has passed. Recently, after difficult events, I "crumbled", and then again "gathered" in my center. I felt the difference and now I can describe from myself what it means to be or not to be in my center.

My center is what I live through: through which I make choices, perform actions, through which I create my life. All my thoughts, feelings, bodily impulses, information about social roles, behavior, etc. converge in the center. At the center, all this is "processed" and an agreed decision is made, what to choose, what to take in order to satisfy the demands of thoughts, feelings, bodily impulses, the core / core part of me and at the same time adequately deal with the social situation. The center is something like a point of coordination and coordinated conscious management of oneself and one's life. In the center, the sensations "I am" and "I am here" are born. In the center is a source of calmness, balance, support, relaxation and composure. In the center is the source of energy.

What does it mean "not to be in your center"?

This means that the sensation of the center can be fragmented, unbalanced, displaced, carried outside of itself into external objects. How it manifests itself in life.

The feeling of the center is shifted

I live from one "sub-center", ignoring some of the information about myself. For example, I live only from my head, ignoring the senses and the body. "I think I love him" instead of "I love him." "I think I am hungry" instead of "I am hungry." “I think I’m not tired yet” instead of “I’m not tired yet” or “I’m already tired”. As if the head makes decisions about feelings, desires, bodily sensations, without even correlating it with the real state of affairs in the body and feelings.

You can also live out of emotions and impulses. I wanted a handbag - I bought it, I wanted another one - I bought it again, I came home - it turned out that I had spent all my salary and there was nothing else to live on until the end of the month. I got angry with the boss, sent him loudly with obscenities - in the morning of the next day I was on the lists for dismissal, although I dreamed of working here for another 5 years and paying off the mortgage.

If I am in the center, then I realize and take into account my desire to buy a handbag, realize and take into account my financial situation. I deliberately make a choice, considering different decisions - to borrow money, save up and buy a handbag in a couple of months, find a part-time job, ask a seamstress friend to sew me a similar bag, etc. I am aware of my anger at the boss, but I do not pour it out on him in a non-constructive manner, but I also do not bend under him. And calmly I find a constructive form of expression of feelings, I talk with the boss at the "adult-adult" level in order to come to a mutual solution of the issue.

The sense of the center is fragmented, unbalanced

There is no single control center, but several "sub-centers" operate. They act in different proportions, not all and not in concert. "I think one thing, feel another, do the third." I love one man, I want another, and with the third I have an interesting and sincere conversation every day. I love to draw, I want to be a designer, but I am convinced that I am a born lawyer, and at the same time I continue to work as an accountant. Today I felt hatred for my husband and left him, tomorrow I realized that I wanted to eat and a new handbag - I returned to my husband.

But if I am in the center, then I can choose one man whom I will love and want, and it will be interesting and sincere to have a conversation with him. I can choose one profession in which I feel fulfilled or consciously combine several fields of activity. I can deliberately decide “to live with my hated husband for my purse and food while I’m looking for work,” or “finally leave my husband, live without a purse and food, while I’m looking for work,” or “continue living with my hated husband, do not change anything, be aware of their addiction."

The feeling of the center is brought out into external objects

I live my life not through myself, not through my thoughts, feelings, desires, states, but through another person and his thoughts-feelings-desires-states. For example, through a man. Or through my mother, through the child, through the boss. Someone else is at the center of my universe. And I act, feel and think the way this other "wants", or the way I think that he "wants". Then I cannot live without this other.

For example. I became interested in a man and want to continue communicating with him. I'm going to write to him - "Hi. How are you?" … If I am in my center, I write this from a completely calm and confident state, I write this because I really wonder how he is doing, I want to hear his answer to this question. If he does not answer or does not want to continue communication, I will be a little upset and go on living my life. If I am not in my center and my center is taken out to an external object (now to this man), then I begin to sausage and freeze: "Can I write to him? What will he think? And how can I write so that he understands, that I’m interested in him, but that I don’t think anything bad? Those. I act not from what I want and what I am interested in, but from getting some kind of reaction from another person. And I no longer hear the answer to my question "How are you?" I listen carefully to see if I managed to get the desired reaction from him. And if he does not answer or does not want to continue communication, then it is a complete disaster - it is not clear how to live on.

You can live as a child - his health and illnesses (rather, illnesses - so that he has something to occupy himself), his successes and failures in school, his love affairs. "Give your life for the good of the child", "deny yourself everything for the sake of the child." Although in essence - to appoint the child as the center around which my life revolves. You can live as a husband - to look the way he wants, to do what he wants. You can live with TV shows or celebrities - imitate them, think about them, try to feel their feelings.

You can bring your center to work, money, an unrealizable dream. If there is a feeling that something “I want so much that I can’t”, then, most likely, my center is placed there.

But if I am in the center, I live my life through myself. And I am interested in a child in a healthy way and take care of him according to his age needs. And with my husband I agree on how each of us should live his life, but at the same time have our common space, our "We". I simply realize my dream - from a state of calmness, confidence, interest, attraction. But attraction, which does not knock me off my feet, does not take away strength, but gives it.

One of the criteria "I am in the center or where" is the answer to the question "What do I want?"

If the answer sounds like "I want him / her / them …" then I am not in the center. "I want him to give me flowers", "I want my mother to stop fighting with me", "I want my salary to be raised." My center is rendered in these very he-she-they.

If I am in the center, the answer is "I want me to …". I want to feel …, I want to act …, I want to be … At the same time, somewhere nearby there is also an answer to the question "What can I do so that I …". And these "want" and "can" correspond to reality. And my state is at the same time coordinated - my body, feelings, and thoughts are filled with energy when I talk about what I want.

For example, I live with a man who beats me. "I want him not to beat me" - will not give a ride. "I want to feel safe with him / I want to be safe with him" - it will not work either: it seems to myself, but does not correspond to reality, it is impossible to be or feel safe next to a loved one if this loved one a man attacks me. "I want to be safe. What can I do for this?"

Another criterion, the question - "Why and why am I doing this? What is my responsibility in this?"

If in order for he-she-them, then this is again not about the center."For my child to be happy", "For my husband to approve of me", "For my mother to be healthy", "Because the boss asked me to."

The man offers to have sex with him. I agree. "Why and for what?" "Because I want it. In order to have fun. And at the same time I acknowledge and accept my side of the responsibility of this event." If I am not in the center, it will be something like: "I am embarrassed to refuse, I was flirting with him, he will be upset", "To take revenge on my husband who cheated," "To prolong our acquaintance, to keep him," etc. etc.

Being in the center is a movement towards wholeness. But it is also a great help in living your life before reaching integrity. Different parts of me may want different things. If I am in my center, then I hear these desires. I slow down, I listen even more subtly and deeper, I am calm and confident. In this calmness, I see different solutions and choose the optimal one. From the center. If I'm not in the center, then these different parts take turns doing one thing or another, which I later regret. Either I hear and realize one part, but I don’t hear the other, I don’t realize, and then psychosomatics comes out.