The explorer and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard was the guest of Matthieu Belliard Tuesday morning on Europe 1. For him, "confinement is a luxury" which allows better living "the present moment", without thinking about the future.

INTERVIEW

If speaking out is increasing to address "after", implying post-confinement linked to the coronavirus, Bertrand Piccard, for his part, prefers to speak of the present, and only of the present. The psychiatrist and explorer, a key man in the Solar Impulse project, delivered Tuesday morning on Europe 1 some tips for living well without waiting for confinement that looks like sheer restraint.

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For the Swiss adventurer, one thing is certain. Unpopular, perhaps? "Confinement is a luxury," he said at the microphone of Matthieu Belliard. "Many people experience it as a confinement, but it is a luxury to be able to be confined in a situation like today. There are some who are at the front, trying to devote themselves to others."

"Move inside yourself"

The drastic measures imposed to fight the epidemic are not only a "luxury", according to Bertrand Piccard: they would even be a real opportunity. "In everyday life, we move too much and we move outside of ourselves", regrets the explorer, author of the first round the world balloon trip over twenty years ago. "It is interesting to move inside yourself, see what is going on, listen to yourself. You can live a confinement like a spiritual experience, which has nothing to do with religion."

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Better than that: "It's a collective retreat, where we live in the present moment", without thinking about the future or the past. "If, in a basket or in confinement, we project ourselves into the future, we rejoice that it's over, we count the days, it's very hard to live, it's a torment. present instant, to feel existing in your body, to feel to breathe, that one advances with time, at the moment when the confinement will be finished, one will be almost astonished that it is already finished. "

More difficult mourning

Some will argue that this introspection is only possible when you are alone. False, replies Bertrand Piccard, who suddenly thinks back to his world tour in a balloon in 1999. At the time, the Swiss teamed up with the Englishman Brian Jonnes: "We had to learn to communicate with each other, to tell us everything. The goal is never to criticize the other, or to talk about the other, but to talk about what we feel about ourselves. When we feel something painful, we can say it , that doesn't mean that the other is wrong. When we exchange two perceptions, it's a real way of getting closer. "

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Listening to him talk about the consequences of an imposed confinement, which now lasts three weeks, we can say that this has only benefits. There is, however, one aspect where being apart from others strikes us: the death of loved ones. "It will be much more difficult to mourn," warns the Swiss psychiatrist, for whom it is again a question of working on oneself: "We are in an irreversible situation, we cannot get out of it. Consequently, it There is a necessary philosophy of acceptance. Accepting that something is as it is is a decision full of wisdom. You must also see life as a permanent experience, where you learn to always do better, to be always wiser, not just telling yourself that life is about being rich and happy. It doesn't always go the way you want and that's what we have to accept. "