Remembering the Present - Part 1.
Stay Present; Stay out of Danger
I once read about "remembering the present moment". This was in my psychological training to be where my feet are in an emergency situation, to be where my feet are rather than being in my head with some unpleasant idea of what happened in the past… or of what might happen in the future. In a true emergency I would always need to be present to what is happening now and to do what is necessary now to be of help to others or myself. I believe this teaching may have saved my life and the life of a patient one evening.
I was among the original volunteers in the late 1970s who conducted group therapy for Vietnam veterans who were having difficulty adjusting to civilian life after their experience in that war and their return back home. These groups were conducted by us civilian therapists for those vets who were so alienated by their experience during and after the war that they could not accept the cost-free help at the local VA hospital because they distrusted any one who was connected to the government. We met in adjoining rooms in a community center on the opposite side of town from the VA. Along with a few other psychologists, I met weekly with vets for five years. Much of my work was helping them to become consistent in remembering their current reality rather than being controlled by their painful past or their much feared future.
Early on in this work a particular incident happened that I can recall with intense interest as if it had happened yesterday. It is important to know that a few of the vets with whom we worked had been assassins in the war. These are specially trained and conditioned, the best-of-the-best, "independent killing machines" who went behind enemy lines alone to find and assassinate designated individuals who were considered key enemy leaders. They had to get into enemy territory, do their assigned job and get out totally on their own. They were highly trained and skilled in many ways to kill you instantly with or without weapons. If set off, they could kill before you had any chance at all of responding to defend yourself, or before they could control themselves and stop. We therapists knew this; the other vets knew this.
On this particular evening I was working with my group when the hall suddenly was filled with running feet and anxious shouting. My door burst open from the psychologist leading the other group along with a few of the vets who were in that other group. Other vets were running down the street. They were trying to find a phone to call the police for help. (We did not have mobile phones back then.)
One of the assassins had gone berserk in that group and started ranting and threatening to kill all of us. His actions were menacing enough to cause the capable, trained vets in his group to flee in terror. He was the only one remaining in that other room and you could hear his ranting and threatening and wall pounding in my room. I was a senior volunteer and looked to for leadership in an emergency. That is why they burst into the door to my room. The psychologist said that he could not go back into that room and did not know what to do. He asked me to help.
I took a breath, consciously told myself to be where my feet were and walked casually into that room. The vet was 6-4 and weighed about 240. I was 5-11 ½ and weighed about 155. He was trained as a killer. I was a physically unskilled suburban kid. He was in the back corner of the room still yelling and threatening to kill us all as he looked straight at me and I walked through the only door to the room. I took a few quick steps to the side of the door leaving plenty of room for him to leave if he chose to and yet staying a lot closer to the door than he was so that I had some slim chance to get out first if he came after me.
If I had listened only to his threats and gesturing and repeated but instantly aborted starts toward me, and if I would have fled as the others had done, I am convinced that he would have lost the little control he had and ended up really hurting someone - himself, one of us, or the police when they arrived. If I had responded only to my fear in that moment, I could not have been of any help. I assumed a sort of military at rest position and spoke in somewhat loud but calm, factual voice telling him that it must feel unfair that he had done his job in the war and then was rejected by others for doing such a good job (a very common theme among these vets). He continued to yell and threaten and pound the wall but stopped the movements toward me or the door. I continued saying that it must hurt terribly to be a patriot protecting our country and then being attacked for being a patriot. In about five very long minutes of me maintaining my control of myself and yet communicating my empathetic awareness of his hurt and pain, he was slumped over in a chair in the back corner sobbing in the painful experience of his feelings of rejection. Police arrived but the other psychologist and the vets outside the room convinced them that we were now all OK and that we did not need them. Fortunately the vet never saw the police that night.
My intended point in this story is that me remembering the present moment and seeing that his aborted starts toward me showed the existence of his marginal control of his actions made it possible to have a healing experience rather than a another damaging experience. What was happening between the two of us in those few minutes allowed him and me to benefit and him not be further hurt by another rejection. If I would have responded to the images of potential harm he could do to me rather than me remembering the present, marginal control he was showing, then I believe that would have been the final straw of rejection that pushed him beyond any control. This hulk of a man could have hurt many people that evening.
He became a valued member of my group for the duration of my work with vets. He also became instrumental in helping other vets connect with the group process and to feel safe in that process. He even became a sort of protector of me when other vets on rare occasions flashed back and became violent.
A key aspect of the work to remembering our universal identity is learning to remember the present rather than getting caught up in our imaginings about the future or our memories of the past. Only in the present moment can we know who we truly are. Only in the present moment can we cause any thing to happen or bring about desired changes. Being where your feet are in the present moment is the only way we can learn true cause and effect.
A word of common sense: "Remembering the present" does not refer to blindly trusting that no harm can come to your body. If you have not yet noticed, these bodies are relatively fragile and can actually be torn apart or squashed into lifelessness. Remembering the present is about being fully aware of what is happening in this moment in your presence. For example, if you are about to be run over by a speeding train, please jump off the track fast! Do not stand there and try to speak to the train in a "somewhat loud but calm, factual voice". Always use common sense in whatever you do. Be normal and not weird.
