Moment to Moment: A Guide to a Fuller and More Fulfilling Life

By Dr Anna O'Reilly

Say goodbye to disappointment and lack of fulfilment!
YOUR LIFE can absolutely be how YOU want it to be!
Moment to Moment: A Guide to a Fuller and More Fulfilling Life is a truly effective self-help programme designed to help you on your journey towards a better existence.
This programme is based on the author's expert knowledge of psychological theories and practices. It describes and explains the steps Dr O'Reilly herself took to overcome adversity to finally reach happiness and fulfilment.
Moment to Moment will show you how to:
- be true to yourself
- stay focused on being rather than having
- slow down and be present
- resist judgement
- embrace change
- make your own rules
and much more!
Read it, follow the advice offered and start living life to the full.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528990042

Dr Anna O'Reilly

Dr Anna O'Reilly was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1970 and moved to England to continue her education when she was 25 years old. She is a doctor of psychology, specialising in the workings of the human brain. After acquiring a comprehensive scientific knowledge about the functioning of the mind, she has more recently dedicated her skills and understanding to develop successful methods to help improve people's lives. Dr O'Reilly's firm belief is that knowledge exists to be shared, and only becomes truly useful when its power is focused on helping others in society.

Book preview

society.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my beautiful and clever daughter, Annabel, who is a ray of sunshine that brightens up my each and every day. Annabel, thank you for being you. I love you with all my heart.

Copyright Information ©

Dr Anna O’Reilly (2020)

The right of Dr Anna O’Reilly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This book is for general information purposes and nothing contained in it is, or is intended to be construed as advice. It does not take into account your individual health, medical, physical or emotional situation or needs. It is not a substitute for medical attention, treatment, examination, advice, treatment of existing conditions or diagnosis and is not intended to provide a clinical diagnosis nor take the place of proper medical advice from a fully qualified medical practitioner.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528990028 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528990035 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528990042 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781398418226 (Audiobook)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgment

Firstly, I would like to express my utmost appreciation to everyone who has contributed to the production of this book. It is one thing to put your words into a computer, but it is entirely another to turn those words into a printed book. A huge thank you to all involved. I would also like to thank my beautiful daughter, Annabel, and my ex-husband, William, for their ongoing support and encouragement. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank you, my kind reader, for giving your time to read this book. It is my sincere hope that you will allow at least some of my advice to influence you as you move forward with your life. A psychologist’s purpose is to help people. It would be my absolute privilege to be able to help you on your own particular journey towards a better place and a wonderful future. GOOD LUCK AND BLESS YOU!

Chapter 1

Take Off Your Masks

"All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits, and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts."

William Shakespeare

These words by William Shakespeare are as true today as they were the day they were written. As babies and very young children, we are unafraid to show people our true selves. We cry when we feel like crying, smile when we want to and demand attention from those around us when we please. Before long however, we grow up and slowly but surely begin to play the roles we are expected to play. As our circumstances change, the number of roles that we play increases again. We may be playing the role of a son/daughter, sibling, partner, parent, employer/employee and so on. At some point, we become so accustomed to these roles that navigating between them becomes automatic. Sooner or later, we forget who we really are, and thus, lose a sense of ‘self’. As an actor assigned to play a specific role, we get into character, so to speak, and start to believe that this is who we really are.

In psychology, this phenomenon is referred to as adopting a social role. These social roles are governed by the value that a given culture assigns to them. In England for example, top footballers are treated like celebrities and their skills are handsomely rewarded. The same is not so true in the USA where football (or soccer as they call it) is less popular and where stars from sports such as baseball, basketball and American football tend to be the celebrities. Social roles are also governed by genetic predispositions. A man cannot be a birth mother, neither can a weak and fragile person become a successful athlete. In addition, some roles may change over time. Not long ago, a married woman was expected to stay at home and take care of her children. It is now generally accepted that if she would rather, a woman can go out to work.

Further, it is quite frightening how rapidly we can become accustomed to a given role to a point where we blindly follow its rules. In a very famous but rather disturbing 1971 Stanford University ‘prison’ study, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo randomly divided his student participants into one of two groups, namely ‘guards’ or ‘prisoners’. Prior to the experiment, none of the students had shown any signs of physical or mental impairment. Those students were then asked to play those roles whilst living in a mock prison that was located in one of the basements at Stanford University. Although the experiment was designed to last for two weeks, it had to be stopped after only six days because of the traumatic effect it had on the participants. Many of the prisoners became depressed and their behaviour became passive whereas the guards began to turn into cruel and sadistic monsters. Those results showed that even though these intelligent individuals knew that they were taking part in an experiment, the tendency to adhere to their roles overtook logic. This in itself is a rather scary thought.

What is more, each social role requires us to act in a way that is appropriate for that role, and therefore comes with a mask that we wear whilst playing it. When we speak to a small child for example, we may smile warmly, lower our voice and even adopt baby talk. In contrast, at work we may wear a mask of competence; we walk tall and with confidence whilst using complicated words to impress others. Yet, somewhere behind all these masks is your real face, a face that more likely than not, you would not recognise when you saw it.

On the brink of madness, Shakespeare’s King Lear shouted out, …who can tell me who I am…?

Do not worry! I am not suggesting that playing our social roles will one day lead to madness. However, I used this quote here, because, to me, it carries two very important messages. Firstly, we want others to tell us who we really are. An impossible task even if people think they know us well. This is because what they really know about us in fact is who we are when playing the roles in which we interact with them. So, feedback obtained from your child will differ greatly from that provided by your co-worker and/or your partner. You can see then that unless you are suffering from multiple-personality disorder you cannot be all of these things at once. The second message is equally important. It tells us that we have a deep need to know who we really are, and thus be at one with the ‘self’.

You may argue, and feel truly justified in doing so, that you do not want to know who you really are because your hands are already full with all the masks you have, and therefore knowing yourself might only complicate things further. If so, I respect that. After all, you are entitled to your own opinion. But, let me see if I can change your mind here. If not, no harm done. At least you will know what you don’t need to know. It may even come of use to you one day.

So here it comes. Knowing yourself is essential for three main reasons. Firstly, if you are in touch with your essence (i.e., the self) you will fully appreciate all the good things in your life. How can you know what makes you happy and matters to you if you do not even know who you really are? Without knowing who you really are, you may well then look for guidance elsewhere. For example, you may say to yourself that if going on a cruise makes your partner happy, it should do the same for you. Whilst on a cruise you may actually realise that you are not very keen on the whole idea and would rather spend your precious time walking through a forest. What I am trying to say here is that what others find pleasurable, you may dislike with passion. Wouldn’t it be easier if you knew that before you boarded the ship? In addition, it may well be that your partner wanted to go on a cruise because someone at his work suggested doing so and that person heard it from so and so, and this chain of links can go on forever. What this shows is that there are plenty of lost souls doing things because other people are doing them as well. Yet, no one is truly happy. What a merry-go-round!

Secondly, not knowing who you are can put you in a vulnerable position because you can then be quite easily manipulated into doing what others want and/or buying things that you do not need. That is why, each year billions of pounds are spent on advertising. Before long, you become convinced that in order to be happy you need to have bigger breasts, for example. You then sign up for a breast enhancement procedure that may leave you scarred for life just to realise that having bigger breasts does not add to the quality of your life. As such, you look for new ways to improve your body and before long you end up addicted to plastic surgery. Also, many of the advertisements are designed to convince you that owning this or that will transform your life. As a result, you buy one thing after another, yet the void inside you can never be filled by having more things. Soon, your home is filled with clutter you neither need nor want and your life becomes focused on having rather than being. I felt that this issue is so important that it deserves a chapter of its own (Chapter 3; ‘Being Versus Having’). I hope you are with me on that one.

Thirdly, if you do not know who you really are, you are more likely than not to follow in other peoples’ footsteps instead of living your own life. I deeply believe that we are here on this beautiful planet for a specific reason and that each of us has his/her own path on which to travel. Also, all of our experiences are designed to point us towards and then to keep us on our individual paths. Only then can we live happier existences and enjoy every step of our journey through life. More on this topic later in this book (see Chapter 13, ‘This Is Your Life’).

Not that long ago, I had played three primary roles which were that of a wife, a mother and a PhD student. Then I was fired from my wife job, which was shortly followed by the completion of my doctorate in psychology. Although I was delighted to have finally graduated, the loss of these two main roles left a deep void in my life. Wearing these masks for so long meant that I no longer knew how to be me again. I had forgotten who I really was. I had become the woman with a lost ‘I’.

Shortly after I said: I do, I accepted that life was not just about me anymore. Before making any major decisions during my marriage, I would ask my then husband about his opinion. I know this is something most couples do regardless of whether they are married or not and that in a sense it is what being in a relationship is all about. However, being the perfectionist that I used to be, I wanted to be the perfect wife. I wanted my husband to be happy with me and proud that I was his wife. This desire for perfection meant that I went along with whatever he wanted to do. My main objective was to please him. Slowly yet progressively, I became so engulfed in the ‘team we’ that I could no longer see the ‘I’ behind my wife mask. Eventually, I dropped the ‘I’ and replaced it with ‘we’. If someone invited me to a party for example, and I knew that would be an event my husband would like to attend, I would say: We would love to come even though I actually did not feel like going. I let my husband choose where we would spend our holidays. After all, he had worked hard for that. The power structure in our relationship was that he made most of the decisions and I just went along with him. I thought that was what wives were supposed to do. As long as he was happy, I was happy too.

After thirteen years my marriage ended, and thus there was no more ‘we’. Importantly, there was no ‘we’ to consider before I had to make a decision or take an action. I had the freedom to do what I wanted but actually I did not want that. I was like one of the animals kept in captivity for a long time that would not exit its cage even if the door was left wide open. I came to realise that I did not know how to be without my ex-husband’s voice in my head. All of that was because I could no longer remember who I really was. Consequently, I did not know what I actually wanted. Without the wife mask, I had to learn how to see and be me again. It took a while but I got there eventually.

Even though my graduation was a very joyous event and I no longer had to define my existence by my marital status because I was a doctor, and hence could use Dr rather than Ms before my name, I had to let go of my student role. This again was quite difficult for me to do as I got pretty attached to that role. Critically, in a short space of time I had lost two out of my