Refocus to regain confidence

Refocus to regain confidence

To advance in confidence, it is imperative to start by refocusing. However, it is the opposite that we experience more and more frequently: a panic facing the mountain of things we have to do, an inability to concentrate, a feeling of scattering. How to refocus, calm down, (re) find in order to regain confidence?

Refocus, why?

How many activities have you been doing simultaneously since you arrived at the office this morning? How many e-mails did you read while listening to your phone while typing a text on this tiny smartphone keyboard that reminds you every time you have very big fingers?

Everything in our daily life encourages us to disperse. This fragmentation has effects on our identity. There is something in our culture related to contemporary means of communication, which is going towards fragmentation. Faced with the multiple demands we receive, we lose a form of inner calm. “Torn between countless tasks, we must also respond to multiple performance orders: be effective at work, at the height of sex and in our family life, stay attractive whatever happens. Each “field” is carefully cut off from the other. We are encouraged to dissociate our intellect, our affects and our body, as if one could go without the others.

To these discourses and “fragmenting” demands is added the impact of the economic crisis: our fear of being marginalized, weakened in our social and professional relations shakes up our “foundations” a little more; in this context, scattering takes on a greater gravity. It damages and explodes the image of oneself. “When we encounter difficulties, especially in the professional setting, we can easily feel downgraded,” says psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Alain Vanier. Because, at work, we do not “break up” not only to earn money or competition: we often want a “narcissising” return, flattering our superior.

Fear, feelings of failure, incapacity can have dramatic consequences for our image and can be reflected, for example, by focusing on different parts of the body that we are scrutinizing. “Age spots on the hands, a sagging forearm … When we search, obviously, we find. Our envelope cracks and we fragment it, by cruelty to ourselves: something purely drive is fixed on a part of us that we decree hateful”.

Zen meditation or yoga

To refocus oneself, to extricate oneself from what is eating away at us, it would be necessary to be able to pacify oneself and to unite oneself. This is what some oriental wisdom offers, such as Zen meditation or yoga (which means “union”). Yoga teacher Iyengar, Faeq Biria explains: “The human being is structured in such a way that, when he wishes to achieve a goal, he must be able to converge in one direction his organs of action, perception and his mind. Often, it is not the desire that we miss, but the organs do not collaborate anymore. And it is because of a closed body that we spread ourselves mentally. We are talking about “defocusing”. To remedy this, we rely on two pillars: postures and breathing. Below you will find some keys and recommendations, established by him, that help to open up and refocus.

Three yoga postures

These three exercises are proposed by Faeq Biria is director of the Iyengar Yoga Center in Paris, and training manager.

=> To refresh the brain: Adho Mukha Suanasana called “dog posture upside down”

When the mind is disturbed, excited, we often feel a heat in the brain. To calm it down, it must be refreshed. Push the palms of the hands hard on the ground and stretch your legs, the small bones of the glutes up to the sky. The heels can be raised slightly. Nape and belly should be relaxed, eyes turned to the belly button. The forehead can be placed on a brick to allow the brain to relax better. The skin of the forehead must descend from the top to the bottom. In this posture, one must breathe calmly – in yoga, we breathe only through the nose – and stay for two to three minutes.

Effects: Relief, soothing of “heated” minds, relaxation, extension of the muscles of the back, neck and ribs.

=> To reconcile the heart and the mind: Viloma (nasal breathing in steps)

Sitting cross-legged, with your back straight, lower your head towards the bust. Keep your eyes closed. Place hands palm against palm, thumbs against sternum. Roll your shoulders back to clear your chest. The belly and the pelvis are completely relaxed. Inhale through the nose with the chest without inflating the belly, keeping this one completely relaxed. Then breathe out a second. Pause for a second and repeat this until you feel that the belly is beginning to contract. Stop at that moment. The belly should never tense. Then take three normal breaths and repeat this cycle. The operation must last five minutes. For those who have a tendency to depression, lack of will or self-confidence, do the same exercise, but instead of exhaling, you inhale.

Effects: Irrigates and leads to better lymphatic circulation, oxygenation of the brain, tissues, muscles; allows you to become aware of your breath, your body, your movements and your thoughts.

=> Taste the inner silence: Savasana (called “corpse posture”)

Lying on your back, a blanket under your head like Viloma, shoulders rolled back, far from your ears, move your arms away from the bust until the inner side of the forearms turns to the ceiling without putting pressure on the shoulders. Stretch the back of your loose legs on the carpet and spread your feet until you feel your toes pointing to the ground on both sides. Your tailbone must go down to the heels and ankles. The cover under your head will be thick enough so that you feel your face slightly sloping so that the skin of the forehead is pointing towards the chin. The glottis and throat must be fully relaxed. The eyes too. You can put a scarf to relax them. This is one of the keys to relaxation, because we say in yoga that just as the skin is the mirror of the state of the body, the eyes are the mirror of the soul. And they can not rest if the brain is not. To relax the latter, completely abandon the bones of the head, especially those of the face, then go to the skin, to the mouth (by detaching the tongue of the palate) and to the muscles, releasing them from the forehead to the chin then the center to the sides (the temples). Let the eyes rest on the well-relaxed brain. The breath must be natural, peaceful and gentle.

Effects: Gives access to inner peace, eliminates nervous, muscular and mental tensions, suspends the effects of gravity, opens the body and unifies it in the mind. This is the posture of letting go.