When people get stuck in their lives they start looking for ways to “free” themselves. These days we tend to turn to Oriental ways of thinking for liberation. We try Yoga or Mindfulness. And if we want to take it to the next level, we turn to enlightened philosophies (or, if you will, religions) such as Buddhism. So why Floanchoring then? The name sounds more like an English euphemism for taking a stroll, frolicking or fluttering, so why should I take it seriously?
It is no accident that Floanchoring is a verb. This is the essence of choosing a way of living that is not a dead-end street or a one way ticket to a burn-out: being aware that you are constantly making choices, making decisions, that put you on a trajectory that steers away from situations that will inevitably cause stress in the long run. It is impossible to avoid stress altogether. Stress is a normal part of every day live, because everybody has things he or she cares about. And if these things are threatened in one way or another, we experience stress. But these situations can be seen as obstacles and we can work to overcome obstacles.
Getting stuck in a life journey that unavoidably leads to long term (if not continuous) stress, that’s a different story altogether. And this can happen to anybody who is switched on autopilot and flows with the stream, without consciously weighing the options. In the interest of a career. For status. For money.
It happens to many of us. Our career develops step by step, almost automatically, and we end up in a job we don’t care for, doing things we don’t like, and then look back wondering: “How the hell did I get here?”. The answer is simple: because you never before stopped to look back and wonder. Because only now you pause and ask yourself if you maybe should have said NO to some of the possibilities you encountered instead of saying YES without thinking it through. Because you wanted the status and the pay raise and assumed that it wouldn’t matter how the job itself would turn out to be.
In its core Floanchoring is nothing else then continuously and actively engaging in your everyday decision making process and not just absorbing everything that comes your way just because “it seemed the obvious thing to do”. This requires your attention, an active attitude towards yourself and the people that surround you and your life in general. It requires you to dig into yourself, get your thoughts in the open, challenge them by discussing them with others and get a clear picture of what you really like to do in life and what not. It requires action. It requires that you work on yourself. That’s why Floanchoring is a verb and not a noun that says “this is the solution”. There is no single solution that fits everyone’s problem. Life constantly throws new and unpredictable waves your way. You can float on that wave and at the same time stay foot, keep being yourself and choose your own course.
Hence Floanchoring.
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