Wake Up!

A Handbook to Living in the Here and Now

Chris Baréz-Brown

• Publisher: The Experiment
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781615194117
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Mental Health & Wellbeing

"A series of balanced, playful, and interesting experiences that will capture your attention, engage your imagination, and stimulate your senses." — Cosmopolitan (UK) Don't waste a minute of your extraordinary life! You have an unlimited capacity to have fun, meet amazing people, and feel truly awake every single day. But do you? When you're living on autopilot (and most people are—80 percent of the time), those opportunities pass you by. Snap out of it! Any one of the 54 playful strategies in Wake Up! will bring your brain back to life. Chris Baréz-Brown spells out the Insight, Plan, and Payoff of every strategy. For example, Steal Back Time: The Insight: If you're not in control of your time, you are not in control of your life. The Plan: Steal some back! Schedule a meeting that doesn't exist, or skip a commitment that fills you with dread and instead do something that fills you with joy. The Payoff: When we act more consciously to decide how we spend our time, we naturally create space to wake up more and more every day. Stop sleepwalking through life and make everyday count! "Author and TEDx inspirational speaker Chris Barez-Brown explains how you can be a happier person through quick routine breaks, such as simply standing up." — GQ (UK) "Tons of ideas to enjoy the little things and be present for the world around you." — Health "This fun book stimulates the imagination and will definitely add spice to readers' lives." — Library Journal

Lost in Music

Throughout the 1990s a psychologist called Alf Gabrielsson collected accounts of “strong experiences related to music.” Here is one:

I was filled by an enormous warmth and heat. I really swallowed all the notes that were streaming out in the air, not a single note, effect or sequence missed my hungry ears . . . I was captivated by each of the instruments and what they had to offer me. Nothing else existed! I was dancing, whirling and really gave myself up to the music and rhythms, overjoyed – laughing. Tears came into my eyes – however strange that may seem. . . . Before[,] I was in a very bad state. Depressed. It was during the most critical time ever in my life. I found it hard to get on with people and had to really exert myself to be able to get to grips with things. Afterwards I was bouncy, giggling, lively and filled with deep joy . . . it was so bewildering that it almost felt as a salvation.

Powerful stuff.

BE LOST IN
MUSIC

THE INSIGHT

Listening to music has a huge impact on the way we feel. It can synchronize our brain rhythms and therefore directly influence our emotions. When we listen to music we know and we love, our brains release dopamine, as they would if we were to take opium. Trippy.

Bob Marley was one man who understood the power of music very well: “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” It is a great healer. Not only that: when we listen to music the soundwaves impact every cell in our bodies, giving us a whole body massage to the unique rhythm and pitch of that tune. Music takes you on a journey like no other, but too often we just let it wash over us without fully engaging. It’s often a part of the background noise, as opposed to something that we get properly lost in.

THE PLAN

For the next four days choose one piece of music that means something to you and sit in a place where you can properly soak it up.

Eliminate all distractions and listen to it in as high a quality as possible. Notice where it takes you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Feel those soundwaves surround you and just let go. My favorite pieces of music evoke deep, emotional reactions. Some take me back to a very particular time and place; a moment that is somehow amplified beyond my daily experience. More often, though, I love music for the journey that it takes me on. If it’s a piece that I can best appreciate only on my own in a quiet room with my eyes closed and the volume jacked to just the right level, then I know it’s something that somehow touches me in a magical way – those are the pieces that I want you to play with. For me right now, I can’t get enough of Sufjan Stevens. I put on Carrie & Lowell and off I go . . .

THE PAYOFF

Music is most often used to regulate our emotions. When we are in a bad mood it can get us out of it, or allow us to wallow in it. It can accentuate what we are feeling or help dissipate it. Regardless of where it takes us, it can help create dramatic swings in how we are feeling.

By immersing yourself fully in a musical experience you will notice that your emotions will be heightened and your imagination primed. This state can be a wonderful anchor to connect back to consciousness and to leave the world of busyness behind. In five minutes you can feel as if you’ve been to a spa for an hour and can come back rejuvenated, with a much clearer sense of how you want this day to be, and ready to experience more shine.

Make
A CUP OF TEA

THE INSIGHT

When I asked a friend once about his top tips for properly being present in the moment he said: “When you do the dishes, do the dishes.”

What he meant was that when we are doing menial tasks we often become lost in a world of imagination and conjecture. We aren’t living in the now but imagining the future and indulging in the past. Our minds love to fantasize about what we’re going to do next weekend, or how we should have told the boss exactly what to do with this week’s report. Autopilot is in full control at that moment and therefore we are neither awake nor aware.

THE PLAN

We are going to do one of the simplest tasks with absolute focus and awareness.

We are going to make a cup of tea:

Ceylon, Earl Grey, green, dandelion or whatever tickles your taste buds.

Simply tune in to the moments that help make it.

Notice how your arm moves toward the tap.

You turn on the tap.

The water flows.

You move the kettle to fill it.

You turn off the tap.

You flick the switch (or light the gas).

You cross to a cupboard and open the cupboard door.

You select a cup and carry it to the kettle.

The kettle comes to the boil.

Your fingers lift the tea bag and drop it into the cup.

You pour the water and watch as the tea infuses, leaving it for as long as is necessary.

You carefully lift out the tea bag and add milk or lemon, if required (hopefully, no sugar).

The tea is made.

Before you lift the cup, take a moment to notice what you have just done.

Remain in the present. Notice how you lift the cup – lift it with as little effort as possible – notice your feet on the floor, drop your shoulders, smile.

Savor your tea.

Drink as if this is your first and your last cup of tea.

Repeat during the day and at any time in your life.

THE PAYOFF

If we can be fully conscious and awake when we are performing habitual actions, then we are retraining our brains to be present more often during our day.

Anything we do with full focus can be an enriching experience, so experiment with other activities that may feel like chores and see if you can use them to remember who you are. When we spend our lives imagining our futures and reliving our pasts, we cannot be connected with the now and so are running on autopilot. We must learn to wake up when doing things that would ordinarily be mundane, so that when we are doing things of real importance we can flick the switch on so much more easily.

What type of tea will tickle your taste buds?

WHAT I
LOVE/HATE
ABOUT ME

THE INSIGHT

Most of us are far too self-critical and we listen far too much to the little voice in our heads. There is always a reason why we are not perfect, good-looking enough, smart, good, fit, funny and so on, and we can spend our whole lives looking for evidence to support it. If you look hard enough, of course, it will be there.

That life sucks. It is driven by the subconscious, which has an inbuilt negativity bias and therefore we can only see the bad. It has been developed as a survival technique, but, as we know, in modern society spotting the danger in everything is no longer helpful.

Many years ago I went on vacation alone to Mexico. It was a pivotal moment of my life when I decided to find some space to think about who I was and who I wanted to be. As part of my exploration I learned that, in order to be fully present and connected, I needed to embrace my shadows as well as my light.

THE PLAN

In your own notebook, write all the things you love about yourself. Really relish this experience. Luxuriate in it. So many things about you are unique and special and make you who you are.

And then on the right, write down all the things that you hate about yourself. This is where you can twist the knife and spew out the vitriol. We all have it in us, so let’s be truthful.

Once you have completed these two lists, spend a while looking at them and really soak them up. This may take some time but your challenge is to learn to love all aspects of both lists and to appreciate, good or bad, that they are what makes you who you are. Over time in my workshops this process adopted the title “Embracing My Arse.” This quite simply happened because of my inherent childish humor (also incongruously part of my “arse”). The title makes me smile every time and hence speeds the acceptance process along the way. Call it what you like, but let’s veer toward keeping this exercise a gigglesome one.

THE PAYOFF

When we embrace our shadows and realize that our foibles and imperfections are what actually make us who we are, then those voices go quieter and we have a chance to shine more brightly. When we love who we are, our connection to this life becomes such that we cannot help but be more conscious and awake. For most of us this is something we need to revisit constantly, but it is well worth the effort as it holds real liberation.

Happiness can only exist in acceptance.

George Orwell

SUNRISE
OR
SUNSET

THE INSIGHT

When we all lived off the land and our families depended upon th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Introduction
• Breathing
• Tune In
• Power Up
• Plug In
• Listen to Your Body
• Lost in Music
• Why Now?
• Wakey Wakey
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright