We are picking and choosing what to be present to.
I was speaking with a woman who said that she was dissatisfied, but objectively if she looked at her life, she had everything she had hoped for, down to the last detail. She didn’t know why she felt disconnected from her own life in this way. She is a deeply spiritual person. She has a daily gratitude practice, and yet still feels disconnected from her own life in some way. She said she feels like she is writing the story of her life and is on Chapter 3, but seems to reside internally in Chapter 15.
To say that the issue here is living in the future rather than the present is true, but I wondered, what keeps us from connecting to the present? I suspect that many of us, when we can be present find that the present is lovely. I suspect we find that what makes us suffer is when we connect to the past, or to the future.
Could it be that what keeps us from staying connected to the present is that we are only trying to connect to the parts of the present we like? We are picking and choosing what to be present to. Gratitude practices are great, but they might only connect us to part of our lives - the good parts - if we fail to be grateful for the suffering.
We know that when we shut down sorrow, we shut down joy. When we shut down presence to the suffering, we shut down presence in general.
To connect to life, one must connect to death.