The will always want something.Are you free from your will? When is you mind done wanting, done thinking, done troubling, done doubting?You will doubt no more once you have taken action on that thought. Though after your action you might start to show remorse or reminisce about the what now lies in your past. Or analyse it in the perception you have gained in hindsight.As long as you have time and or energy you may let your mind be occupied, for example with analysing. You may do this to a point you may call overthinking.There is always something to think about. what will you gain from it? when will you be done? when you have made a decision? does that mean it is final? or when something more urgent pops up? when something more important comes along? none of the above will bring an end to the thinking. Life is a process. There is always something to do. There is always something to thinks about. Will distraction then, keep us from a troubling mind? Structural escapism in the form of entertainment. In the form of pleasure. Will it keep us from an active mind? It appears that way. Or does it exist parallel to the thinking but overshadows it? That might lie closer to the truth. Escapism only lasts until reality has caught up. Escapism keeps us from an active mind as long as it fills us enough. Distraction, entertainment and pleasure are forms of escapism. The pitfall of these elements of escapism is comparable to that of an obsession, of an addiction. You will need more to reach the same result. The will need a higher intensity in a growing intensity to reach the same result. The result being a temporary escape.The mainstream culture in the western societies abuse this pitfall and convince us we need different forms of escapism. There is always the next hot thing. The next show we must watch, the next piece of technology we must gain, the next hype to pursue. If we think we have something the world already presents the next. If the next is acquired the world creates something new that we can chase. You might criticise this line of thought with the argument that it also drives innovation. Indeed it does, but I am talking about the effect on the individual. On you. Do you think you grow as a person, as a ambassador of humanity is you continue to pursue such things, such fleeting experiences in shallow entertainment? Or do you just follow your will?Do you do what do want or do you do what you think you want? What is the will? The will always want something. Formulated by greater minds than my own called it the monkeymind. By an even more astonishing thinker it has been defined as the ego, the superego, and the Id.Imagine two people. One of them is clearly more energetic, seemingly more convincing, sounding more interesting. That one is obviously trying to get as much attention as is possible. The other is silent, content, so unnoticeable that one might be overlooked.To whom do you dedicate your time and energy? There is no wrong answer. There is no definitive answer. Though, we should be aware that is our choice to whom we listen. To whom we listen is the one we become. We may choose to switch sides because we are swayed. We may choose to for other reasons.There is one pitfall. We may forget the comfort of the silence, of the silent one, the one who is content. We may forget the joy of the turbulence, of the unrestful one, the one who moves. In truth, I think there should be a balance. That there should be a deliberate search for when to be whom. The one, the other, and the one who imagine represent the ego, superego and the Id.We should make a distinction between being physically silent and having a silent mind. Those who are silent or those who try to hide themselves, those who emit they do not want to disturb other may have an overactive or troubled mind. Those who are loud or those who want to present themselves, those who emit they are fearless may have an overactive or troubled mind.The two people I told you to imagine exist only within, they are representations. You cannot always see clearly from the outside who someone tries to listen to within. In contemporary terms: whether someone is extrovert or introvert does not show whether they are balanced within.The monkeymind may take over someone and have them in its control. As any other person, that person will benefit from learning how to listen to the silence within.Luckily there are many tools and guides to support you it this process. This process called life. Your life your way. As with all, awareness is the first step. That is the way of the self.
Tag: depression
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The way is the way
A phrase often heard in philosophical thoughts is; “the way will show itself”. How is that true for me and for you?
A guided mediation or other helpful methods for tranquillity seem to overlook something. They will say the way is obvious, that it will show itself. What does that actually mean? I will describe two different versions of the same wisdom. Choose for yourself with which one you identify most.
From all particles in the universe there are some which were in the same proximity. Those particle were so reactive and attracted towards each other that it was possible to connect, by chance, by fate, by opportunity, maybe by choice. In the womb of your mother all these particles were gathered. They were moulded, the particles of the world, the energy of the universe all moulded into a living being. This living being though it could exist on its own, sometimes forgetting that one is but a part of the whole. The one needs to find its place in the whole, to feel useful, to feel needed. Because you are needed.
Imagine that one, you, walking a path. Most of us have little honest guidance so the only way is to move forward. As we move forward one or more paths become obvious to us. Sometimes we can see obstacles ahead, sometimes we see a clear path, sometimes we cannot see at all. The path would slowly enfold as we set each step. Along the road there are numerous distractions, or are they signs? Are the distractions welcome or unwanted? Are certain companions dragging you or strengthening you? What do you need, what is best for you in the view of your complete path? When looking forward your path may appear. When standing still you might or might not have stable footing, so we try to stay in motion. When looking back we can see the path we have walked. Did you choose or did you follow a path?
Imagine you are in nature, in the middle of untouched nature. There are no paths, no humans to guide you, no knowledge of right and wrong. Yet you have set certain expectations for your journey, your path. But how will you know which way to go? There is no clear path, in every direction you look there lies as much comfort as obstacles but different in intensity. There are some obvious routes to take but there is no path. For example taking the route by walking in the valley, in the shadow of the mountain, but you will never know what lies beyond the mountain. Maybe that route will eventually force you to climb a steeper part of the mountain. The only thing you can do is create a path that is logical to you, that you can feel in your gut is right for you. There is no clear path but there are endless directions, plenty of options. When walking on your path you might encounter a river. You can see this river as an obstacle and avoid it. You may see it as an obstacle but overcome it, by being creative, fell a tree for an improvised bridge, or use rocks as stepping stones. You may even see the river as an opportunity to learn how to swim. Not knowing if you will ever swim again, so would it be a waste of time? Will you follow the stars in the ever changing sky? Will you follow the sunset? Will you follow a nice smell or warm breeze? Will you choose which way to go? When looking forward you might see the first few obstacles in this general direction, but it is not a path yet. When standing still you have the time to become conscious that you can change your direction rigorously because from when you are standing now your perspective on the environment has changed. When looking back you realise you have created a path?
I believe we can only choose and create based on what we know. And we know we know little. In the last example it might seem an impossible idea to swim, but you will only know in hindsight. In my life I have encountered obstacles I could overcome. Other obstacles took me an extensive amount of changing to overcome. Even some obstacles still exist. And I am sure that more will come. An obstacle is not truly an obstacle if you already know to overcome it. By encountering comparable obstacles you will become better at overcoming them. When we live risk averse and obstacle-avoiding, do we really live? When you encounter too many obstacles to bear, you might be forced to stand still. This occasionally standing still creates the opportunity to look, to see. To look ahead, to look around, to see how you have created your path thus far. The answer is that you are the one who must choose, to follow or to create. You have to do. I must do.
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The role of conflict, peace and being stuck in the journey of becoming.
There has been a point in my life when in stood still for a long time. At the time I thought it was too long. In hindsight, it is hard to say what would have happened to me if I started to move forward again, I can say something about what did happen to me.
I have always been an energetic person. An ambitious, social, curious person. Ambitious because I wanted to be someone, and I thought I needed formal merit to show for it. I knew as well that I needed the personal merit. I mean; you need a personality that is strong, wise, mature. I was courageous, I knew that in order to fly I needed to jump and fail and jump and fail. I was always trying so hard. Though, still I was becoming the person I wanted to be. Not in my career but as a person I was. But my self-image was formed mainly by how I could show for it, by formal merit. But I was stuck in my career and was I forced by internal and external forces to stay where I was. It felt like I was stuck in life. All I ever knew was to move forward, to strive, and even though I had my share of failure there always came new opportunities.
At that point in life, I was stuck. I needed to complete that chapter in my life to jump onto new opportunities. I had no other choice to finish what I had started. My sole purpose was to focus and overcome the hurdle that was equally external as internal. Distractions would not let me escape from my purpose. I tormented myself with poisonous thoughts for a long time, making the obstacle harder to overcome. I was stuck too long already, I was asking myself; how, when and can I still make it out? I never lost hope, but I lost trust. I lost. It felt I lost every day.
Still, I knew the tormenting was partly internal. Therefore I knew I had to unlearn to torture myself. I had to learn to enjoy life while slowly becoming unstuck. Becoming unstock and finishing that chapter in my life would still take months to a year and it was ongoing for longer. The personal trait that always pushed me forward, that never made me give up was now a burden. It would take time to push forward, I would need time to stand up again before taking the next attempt to fly.
It was unbearable to be subjected to constant self-torment. The option of taking the source of torment away lied in the future, therefore the option of changing how was handling the situation was the only one. I was forced to stand still, I had no idea what to do when you are standing still. Life, for me, until the forced standstill, was moving forward. Then, I could not move forward.
At first, I was objecting. Objecting made me angry. The anger made me a bitter person. The bitterness made me sad. The sadness made me numb. The numbness revived the rebel in me. The rebel in me made me object once more. That cycle continued. I relived the circle before I realized objecting only brought forth my own downfall, but that realization was not enough to change me deeply enough. I relived the circle more times. I came to realize that I needed something to break the circle.
My perception was that objecting was the true way to show myself. By objecting I thought I was showing strength to myself and my environment. I thought that by stopping to object I would subject… and to subject, in my eyes, was loosing myself, loathing myself. This remains a difficult and painful inner conflict of perception until this day. It was a dilemma; in one option I would stay stuck and therefore lose in life and being forced to take a turn in life, but I would not loose myself. The other option was to adopt a loss, loosing myself but being able to revive in the future. The way I describe this took years to form and formulate in my head and emotions. I have had many ways to perceive this dilemma. That is a part of why I was stuck.
I was not ready to make a decision yet. Being ripe counts only for your life and your circumstances, you can not compare yourself to others, even if you perceive them to be your peers. In life, only you can be ready for your life. I was not ripe enough to rigorously change as person once more. I had to change my ways in other factors of my life to be able to move forward before. It means to really let get of a part of yourself. To let go of your identity. In a certain perception, I had to become less.
Therefore, being stuck was a much-needed in my process called life. And time alone was not enough to ripen this being. The described cycle of objection had to be broken. In my numbness I had to find new ways to feel, to express, to be. I was in need of learning to enjoy standing still. I always considered myself a reflective person, I still think I was, it already was one of my strengths. Yet, I did not understand how I could enjoy standing still, I perceived it as being stuck. I was standing still in my career, in my social skills, in my exposure to challenges of life. But my biggest challenge was to manage myself when standing still. In chaos, I thrive. In structure, I manage. In peace, I object. In stillness, I act. But I learned; in stillness, be still.
In stillness, be still. Feel stillness, become stillness, become needless. Let go of being useful, let go of using, let go of your perceived needs.
For long it felt like life was putting me in place. Putting me in line. Wanting to reign over me. Like a wild horse I did not want to be tamed. But it is not like that. A horse will eventually submit to a rider, it will eventually be controlled. Controlled by an external force. I was right not to be controlled by life, or my environment or my community. But those are not the metaphorical rider. In this metaphor, I am the horse ánd the rider. Only me would let me control me. Only me can control me.
Only me can control me. Only me would let me control me. And the only way to do that is to submit to the me when I am completely still. I first had to experience stillness to become stillness. I had to make peace with myself. Achievements, compliments, or anything that can be measured will not bring you to peace with yourself. You are already enough to be in peace with yourself. Let go of yourself in order to control your emotions and thought coming from the external. Thus, let go of yourself to control yourself, that is how you can manage yourself. That is how you become a mighty mounted knight in your own story.
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How can I develop a positive perception?
Let us be clear from the start, you cannot force yourself to be happy. You can alter certain aspects of yourself and your life, but you cannot force yourself into being happy. Happiness is an overall positive state of being, forcing your way there is counterproductive. There is joy in the active. There is happiness in the inactive.
Happiness is a state of mind by which you are positive to positive happenings and resilient towards negative ones. From all experiences you grow. Your way of living is one that you have designed or chosen or fell into. Happiness lies in changing your way of living, to keep growing in your way of living. So, there are internal and outer factors which influence your happiness. I am not searching to become a monk who is happy with nothing. I have profound respect for those holy man. With great admiration for them I am inspired to see the beautiful and extraordinary in the mundane. Though I seek a life with more rigorous change, impulses and stimuli that brings me higher peaks but also risk lower valleys.
Happiness is a spectrum of contentedness. You cannot be equally happy in every moment. You can however, go back to the state of contentedness after a certain emotion or stimuli. When you have time, truly time. Time to just be in the moment, free from stimuli and emotions stemming from the ego. When you have that moment, then you can consciously experience the contentedness. If you are acting on something you are reacting, that is an active mode of being and might bring you happiness during and after achieving it. The contentedness, however, is there when everything else is silent.
Forcing to feel that content, to be content, is impossible. Because forcing yourself is an emotion and internal stimulus and more at the same time, therefore you ae not free from them, it means you are in the active mode. The active mode is very productive, in this mode you have the power to change, yourself and your surroundings. You can experience joy and sadness in the active mode. You can feel happiness in your active mode, but that stems from your inactive being. Because you are certain, you are confident, you are able to let go and be in the moment because you know you will return to your inactive state of happiness.
When you are unable to fee happiness it lies in your expectations, wishes and discomfort. It is indeed hard to feel content when you are extremely comfortable, though a little discomfort should not interfere with being content. For example, a little bit exaggerated: most westerners feel content when there is a temperature between 15 and 25 degrees. When it is colder than 15 degrees it might you will change your clothing in different layers or steps. When it is hotter than 25 degrees you will adapt your physical activities so you do not exceed physical limits and get too hot, you might even look how to cool yourself. Between 15 and 25 degrees you will feel content, your body is adapting to the temperature, but temperature is never constant. There will be a cold breeze, or a warm breeze or cloud and our position in relation to the sun will definitely happen. So, your body is adapting all the time to all these minor changes. You might experience those minor changes as acceptable, inconvenient, uncomfortable, or even too comfortable.
When the change in weather gets too uncomfortable, we will climb out our inactive mode and start being active so we can adapt to our environment. All with the underlying intention to go back to our comfortable inactive contentedness. We force ourselves into doing something about our discomfort. It is different for people when something is regarded as discomfort. Is it a cold breeze, is it the appearance of a cloud in front of the sunlight, is it the dampness, is it the temperature drop after sunset, is it the rapidly back- and forthing of the temperature, is it when summer ends, is it when winter starts? When will your range of comfort change into such discomfort that you need to change something. I am not asking you nor myself to become some Wim Hof Iceman and be able to endure extreme cold and still feel content. He forced his body to withstand his cold, but he accepted that it is not wort to impact his contentedness. He forced his body, and he learned what he was mentally capable of. You and I can learn that a certain amount discomfort should not influence our mental well-being, our state of comfort.
I live in a fast-paced, high-stimulus, high-expectations society and I see every day how hard it is or people to let go, to sit down and stop chasing and fulfilling the never-ending stirring of needing to do something caused by the overfull, spilling stimuli of our surrounding. We have learned that we need to achieve and expect things before we can sit down, accept and be happy. Most of us limit ourselves to being happy in specific moments like after work, after sports, after a workweek, after a social event. It is because we have so little experience with contentedness, with silence, with happiness. We are challenged with every form of competition in every aspect of life, met with impossible standards. Why should you be happy with a regular glass of water when it could have been cold water, in a beautiful glass, with a slice of fresh lemon, from the spring of youth, with a piece of cloud from heaven. Because we can. Because it is all our body needs. The rest is a need of the mind created by external forces.
You can force yourself to sit down. You can force yourself to say and think: ‘now I will not act on every thought, every urge, every stimulus, for they are just that. I will let them pass.’ Of course, such forces will surface. You can force yourself to be conscious of them. To be conscious that you do not have to act upon them. To be conscious that if you do there will be new ones. That if you do it does not necessarily lead to less inconvenience. You can force yourself to examine a discomfort and analyse is for what it is. You can force yourself to ask: ‘is it truly worth to be influenced by this.’ If it is such discomfort, please act upon it. Though, I and you need to learn how to be content, to let go. We have to learn that there are moments of activeness and moments of inactiveness. We need both to live balanced.
We must learn the ability to judge when it is too much discomfort, and we must act. We must learn the ability to judge when it is within our range of comfort, and we must rest. We can force ourselves to go and to stop with the use and help of stimuli. But we must learn how to stop being forced and influenced by the stimuli. There will always be stimuli, we must learn that we do not have to be forced by them. Learning that, is a very important part of learning to be content, learning to be happy.
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How do a positive and negative state of mind differ from each other? How are a positive and negative mood influenced?
There is much more to write about happiness than I thought there was when I started with this subject. Something that appears so simple has proved to be something extraordinarily complex. Happiness is entangled in the landscape of emotions, definitions, contexts and perceptions. Happiness is the basis and the sum of all we are and are not.
Happiness is therefore a state of mind, luckily that means that we can learn to be happy. It is an ability that we can train, a train of thought we can train. The more I write about it, the more I understand and accept my own past and state of mind. Also, the more I hope to improve my future state of mind.
In another blog I have tried to define happiness by using different definitions. Now I will try to explain happiness by comparing it to depression. I hope you agree that both are a state of mind and both states of mind are justifiable. In some cases, the exterior will have a more dominant influence than the interior on your state of mind. Who is responsible for your happiness has been discussed in ‘the responsibility of happiness’ the conclusion was: partly those who influence you and partly yourself. I believe the same to be true for being depressed or any other state of mind, any other way of thinking. In this example I will use two apparent extremes on the scale of positivity and negativity: happiness and depression.
When someone is happy their behaviour is vastly different from someone who is happy. The internal state of mind is reflected in ones thought patterns and emotional pattern. Ones emotional and thought pattern influence someone’s behaviour. Action leads to reaction and I will try to limit myself into describing and analysing what happens when we react. I take my own behaviour of distinct phases of my life as basis for this hopefully recognisable need to express myself. A state of mind is something long term, your mood is short term and means a small shift within the overall state of mind. For example, a good mood for someone who is depressed might be worse than a terrible mood for a happy person.
When I am happy and something positive happens there follows a positive emotion and I am likely to magnify the positive thing that happens. I am able to celebrate it and accept the positive external stimulus and therefore my mood will improve. Being depressed is vastly more exhausting than being happy, and I have been so exhausted that I despaired I was not being able to acquire positive energy again. When I am depressed and something positive happens a few things might happen depending on how acceptant I am to an external stimulus. What mostly occurred is that I downplayed the positive stimulus and sort of blocked it from really landing, from actually influencing me. I made it look like it was something insignificant and I did not deserve to have a better mood because of it. Sometimes, I even ignored the happening of something positive, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously (like: ‘give me a break’). Other times, I was able to let accept something positive happened and I let it influence me. Then it felt more like I was relieved of a certain amount of pain or torture than feeling I received something positive (like: ‘I finally caught a break’). It was as if the negativity was weakened for a moment. We must be conscious that weakened negativity is the same as enhanced positivity. But when I was depressed, I would think: ‘I am less unhappy’, instead of: ‘I am happier’ because your mood is still far on the negative scale of possible moods. In short all this means that when you are happy you will allow positivity to influence you more than when you are depressed. Let me tell you: you are allowed to be happy, you deserve to be happy. Let go, let yourself be happy. Stop being an immovable block of negativity. Allow your mood to improve, allow your overall state of mind to change!
When I am happy and something negative happens two things might follow. When it is something small, I will downplay or relativise the negative stimulus so that it does not influence my mood and overall happiness. When it is something big, I will allow myself to experience a perceived negative emotion in the fullest extent. When I am happy, I am able to cry when something dreadful happens. I am able to experience most emotions pure and eventually return to my normal state of experiencing happiness. I have written a perceived negative emotion because for example sadness is not necessarily negative. I will probably follow a negative influence but that does not mean sadness is negative. It means you have cared for someone or something and that has come to an end. When you are happy you are able to see that it is beautiful to cry when someone has left your life. Another example, when you chased your dream, but something has blocked you from achieving it you will be sad, but that means you had something to live for, that you had passion. Of course, it is sad that it has discontinued but eventually you will see you can dream again! It makes me happy and feel alive to experience any emotion in a pure form, it makes me feel alive, it makes me feel human. When you are happy you will come back to your natural state of being, which is positively content, it is happiness. When you are happy you are resilient, you are ably to experience an emotion in the moment but eventually return to an overall (somewhat) positive state of mind. Well, that is completely different when you are depressed.
When I am depressed and something negative happens one thing will happen, though in different possible magnitudes. It will make me feel worse, I will let it influence me. Where a positive stimulus might not move a depressed person, a negative stimulus will most certainly will. The sadness of depression is not the emotion described above that you experience for a short amount of time. The sadness of a depressed one is a dragging, energy-absorbing, and constant. I will compare it to a change in a state of your physique. When you are happy and something terribly negative happens would in the physical sense be: ‘You are healthy, and you break your leg it will hurt for a short amount of time, but it will heal up nicely’. When you are depressed and something negative happens would in the physical sense be: ‘You have one unhealthy bad knee that never recovered and you break your other leg, due to the extra stress on your bad knee the situation will worsen. But when your good leg is healed, your bad knee might not recover completely to the unhealthy bad knee state that it was before. You will still have a bad knee and it probably grew worse without sight on it ever healing.’ Your state of mind, or state of physique is able to move in the negative direction but the idea of it moving in the positive direction seems impossible. I am here to tell you that your state of mind can be changed, your train of thought can be influenced. The way you react and cope with external factors can be adapted. You are able to become more resilient. You might have forgotten how to overcome and heal yourself but that you are still able to, you can relearn it. Allow yourself to heal. Please let yourself experience some love and light and happiness once in a while. It is okay to enjoy a smile, a compliment, a hug even if you give them to yourself. Because you do deserve them, you need them because you are a human being. In short all this means that someone who is happy will allow oneself to experience a perceived negative emotion and will return to the normal state of being. One who is depressed is numb to positive stimulus, but a negative stimulus might bring one down further on the scale of negativity. A depressed one is unable or/and afraid to let go and experience an emotion purely because they consciously or unconsciously believe that they are able to bounce back.
An external force or stimuli will lead to a reaction. The visible and invisible reaction of one who is happy and one who is depressed are vastly different. The stimulus is the same starting point that will initiate different tracks on which the train of thought and emotion will pass. The tracks are the sum of everything that is built by our own effort and the effort of others. What has been build can be broken. What has been build can be fortified.
Allow yourself to change. Notice how your train of thought and emotions ‘choochoos’, do not condemn if it differs from your ideal. Start by just noticing what you truly experience.
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When will I allow and support myself to change? A contemporary example.
Changing is hard. Changing is simple. You are changing every day. In the physical sense you change every day. For example, your hair grows, your nails grow and new layers of your skin are generated. You do not have to do anything and your physique will change. How magnificent.
Though, it changes in more miraculous ways: your overall body and health changes every day. In my blog ‘hurdles to happiness’ I have written about how food influences your body. You truly become what you feed yourself with; the water you drank yesterday will flow out of your body and the water you drink today will flow out tomorrow.
You are changing every day. In the mental sense you change every day. For example, you appreciate something for the first time, or more, your attitude towards something has become more positive, you have overcome a certain factor that influenced you yesterday. You do not have to do anything and your mind will change. How magnificent.
Though, it changes in more miraculous ways: your overall state of mind changes every day. In my blog ‘an emotional hurdle to happiness’ I have written about how ‘mental food’ influences your mind. With mental food I mean what you expose yourself to. For example, to what social context, to what media, to what form and theme of entertainment? You truly become what you feed yourself with; the news you digested yesterday will form your emotion and opinion about today, the information you absorb today will shape your attitude of tomorrow.
You and I change every day. Much is unconscious but we can be made conscious about such changes, and we are aloud to appreciate those natural ways of becoming. We can change ourselves into a direction if we are conscious about it. I try to find and surround myself with stimuli and incentives that change me into my chosen direction.
Rigorous personal change doesn’t happen often because it is usually caused by a drastic external change. Modest personal change happens all the time and is caused by minor external change. We often have a choice in what context we are subjected to, even if it is just certain factors. A contemporary example: you try to overcome your impulses to use social media but it is hard to resist it. With good reason because the social media machines are designed to be on your mind as much as possible so you generate ‘screen time’. ‘Screen time’ is the amount of time that commercial businesses can influence to become and therefore consume in a certain way. If you would limit your screen time, you limit the amount commercial businesses try to turn you into their ideal consumer. But remember you are still influenced. Your interests partially decide what pages you like and follow. The other way around, the pages you like and follow influences your interests and buying behaviour.
By using social media you will be seduced to use it more and more. To be entertained or bored more and more. If you keep yourself exposed to the same pages, those pages will strengthen their position in your perception of the world. For example if you follow travel pages your desire to travel will grow. Your perception of freedom and goals in life will grow to revolve around travel. Thus, the amount of screen time influences your attitude in life. In other words, the way you expose yourself to streams of information will influence your state of mind.
Still, knowing and understanding the above described phenomena your behaviour is unlikely to change. These machines are very well designed and I understand and forgive everyone who obsessively uses social media. I might need a whole book to convince someone to actively change their behaviour towards social media usage. Now you know how you are influenced: If you want to change your amount of ‘screen time’ that is great but you might need to find a different way to spend your time. It may be active, productive, or relaxing, however you think it should be spend. Remember, durable change often takes some time. We didn’t start using social media with as much ‘screen time’ as is done nowadays. If you do not want to change your amount of screen time that is completely acceptable as well. If you do not want to actively change you should not be forced to. But you might persuade or let yourself be persuaded to change. There are enough pages that have a lesser intent to turn you into a consumer which you van follow. Without actually changing your behaviour your long term attitude will be influenced.
I will be influenced. I will change. I am grateful in the many miraculous ways I do. I determine the dimensions and directions I change in. I am. I become.
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Who is to blame or to thank for your state of mind?
The answer to this question should be easy right? For me, it is me. For you, it is you.
I want to write about it the ability to influence your own state of mind. I struggle with negative emotions. I have a responsibility to fulfil but I am too self-absorbed to get it done. I am too much in my mind to get it done. It goes deeper than simple procrastination or something like a writer’s block. I am scared. I blame myself for being scared, while I know that is not progressive. Thus, when I intended to do or to let something but eventually it does not become reality then I give myself negative energy in three ways. When I do get something positive done or when I let something negative undone, I only let myself feel a little proud and relieved. I tell myself that it is silly that I am proud about taking such a small step. also, I meant to take that step long ago and I unconsciously blame my past self. Thus, when I intended to do or to let something and it does become reality then I give myself positive energy in one way and negative energy in two ways. I am rationally aware of this form of conduct in my brain and I blame myself for letting it become like that. I want to change my way of thinking because it is not logical at all. I can explain how it came to be like this but that does not mean that overall it is a logical way of thinking.
I limit myself in performing actions that bring me joy and in experiencing joy. I am in a process to change that. I am aware that closing this chapter in life gives me ultimate joy, I let one thing influence my overall emotion and state of mind. With that aspect, I do what I can, but I still feel guilt that limit myself. The guilt and negative emotions appear to be staying. Though I am closing in on closing this chapter of my life, I do not experience more happiness. I am close to terminating a pressing negative responsibility and phase in my life. I expected that when the end was becoming closer, the negativity would disappear as well. But I experience that tough the end is becoming closer, the negativity maintains it intensity. I feel that by experience negative emotions for so long I has become a part of my thinking. I have turned sceptical and pessimistic. Maybe, the cause lays in that I feel that I am not doing truly everything to end this phase as fast as possible, I am extending this phase unnecessarily. I am afraid to confront, I am afraid to lose hope again, I do not want to feel weak again. All that is understandable, but the lack of courage makes me undeserving of overturning myself. I grew comfortable in my own discomfort because I know I can endure the lasting discomfort. It means I am afraid to move forward.
Thus, it can be explained why I have this way of thinking. The way of thinking can be explained as a reaction to my circumstances. Though, I cannot blame the changing exterior circumstances for continuing the same negative internal reaction. I should be thankful that the circumstances have I changed. Now, I want to continue changing my way, my way of thinking, my way of experiencing. I am responsible for shaping my life, that means internal and external. I have been able to reshape my external life. With that I favourably influenced the flow of positive interaction and energy into my life. Therefore, I am genuinely happy in many moments. My overall state of mind is therefore growing positively. I am acting on my responsibility of happiness.
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A door can be open. A door can be closed. A door can be ajar. What is your situation? How can you to handle the situation with others?
All theories that describe and analyse the needs of humanity will address the need for social interaction. One of my favourite writers in this subject is Carl Maslow. He has a widely known theory about the needs of humanity that must be met to eventually feel happiness. One layer of his theory examines the need for acceptance and respect in social structures. I want to describe this layer in my own words. I hope you as the reader can identify yourself with the metaphor of the door.
We humans are social creatures. Without enough social interactions and momentary connections, you are highly likely to become unhappy. No matter how introvert or extravert you might be, social interaction is necessary. Necessary. Necessary to be happy, necessary to grow, necessary to live.
For human interaction to exist, we need at least two persons. In this metaphor: the mind these people exist within a room. A person feel they can truly be oneself within that enclosed room. But that room has a door. When you open this door other people might see how you behave and even how you think. When it is closed, you are completely ‘safe’ from outer intangible initiatives. Though, this ‘safety’ is false, because eventually we need others. We need them for love, for care. To distinguish yourself, to define yourself, to understand you are unique. You need other to be an individual, you need other to be a part of something. We all are a part of humanity, though so different we will never meet other beings that are so much like ourselves as other human beings.
The door can be opened in two ways. You can open it yourself or you can let it be opened by others. It takes courage to open the door yourself in order to search for social interaction. Mostly when we are hurt or really need someone, we lack this courage. Then, we need other to open the door for us, but we must let them, we have to permit them. We want that other people understand when they have to open the door, because it takes courage to say: I need you. Please, help me. Help me help myself. When we are lost in our own emotion, we are unable to let people open your door, you might not even notice that you try. When you lose yourself further, all your own energy is completely turned inward and you might even forget how to open that door. The person who wants to put energy into you is completely neglected. That person can yell, even shout, bounce on the door, pull on the door but is not heard. Then you will have to relearn to look outwards and start to connect again.
The first step is that you yourself and others can make you conscious there is door. Then, you need to understand that it is closed. You must accept that you are not showing yourself. If you think you do, you do not. At most you show the outer hard shell of you room, with no sign of genuinely wanting to open the door. Start to look at the door. Realise you need others. Start to let others open the door. Then, you can see that a social connection is wonderful. Finally, you will be happy that the door, once more, is opened.
Someone who is more certain and has amounted sufficient courage might be able to open the door on one’s own. For everyone, no matter how introvert or extrovert one might be, it always takes courage. In time it might get easier, and it might get harder as well. When you are comfortable to open your door to other you will grow in your ability to connect with other. You will get to know each other and you will learn whether you have a healthy connection or relation. When both doors are wide open it is likely your relation will flourish. When two doors are open, all is well. You trust each other, you feel positivity. You will have a healthy amount of empathy, and you will feel connected. We have all experienced this warmth at some point, to some extent. This is the ideal situation.
Maintaining the ideal situation, keeping both doors completely open, takes a lot of effort. When one or both doors are closing your relation will likely fall in decay. The input of energy will become imbalanced. When one side realises it is putting in more time and effort one will try to balance this out. One might ask or wait for the other to increase the amount of energy put in the relation, to again open the door. If the other is unable to do so, depending on how strong the relationship is, the one has no choice but to decrease the amount of energy. At that point, the input of energy will be balanced again, and the relationship will reach a status-quo. When the closing of doors, the of decreasing input is set in motion a lot of energy is needed to reverse that motion. If the closing is a consequence of something, then something of equal importance must be done to stop the closing. Then, there is still no guarantee the door will open once again. Sometimes we are content that both will close the door. It is okay to let some relationships end, we will have learned a lot.
The situation when you keep investing in someone who is closing one’s door is tiring. It is comparable to two other situations. One is where you try to reopen a long-closed door to reignite the connection you once had. Another is where your own door is open and you are looking to find new connections. In all three situations there exists an imbalance. Your door is open and you are taking an effort into opening or finding opened door. This is effort, for everyone. Therefore, I always am grateful if someone takes the effort, no matter the form. The effort you put in has to be met with the effort from someone else. Only then you can maintain your position of the one investing effort. Usually, we feel that we are that person, but are we? We are conscious of our own effort, our own input at connecting but frequently we are blind to the effort of others. Was our effort true? Was our effort consistent or was our effort just a momentarily impulse? An attempt is an action that stands alone, it can be met with a momentarily reaction, but than how do you go from there? What do you expect? For both sides it takes effort, every effort takes courage, the courage to trust. Do not let yourself get disappointed if standalone attempts are met with suspicion or are swept away in the moment. Set realistic expectations to new connections, feeling a connection instantly is exceptional.
At this point I want to sound hopeful, but it is hard. It is easy to think: who still makes an effort. It is easy to think: who still writes a heartfelt blog, not for the views. It is too easy to follow in the victim trend. I have been swayed as well. Though, keep being courageous, I say to thee and myself! There are plenty of people who want to open their door. We have all been hurt at some point. Everyone wants to be healed and heal themselves. Everybody want to be connected, everybody needs to be connected. For years, my door was open and I tried to open the door to others. In these years I was able to maintain certain relationships and put effort in stopping them from decaying. Some doors kept open, some completely closes. Some reopened, some never did. I continued to search for doors to open, I welcomed everyone I could. I invested in whomever would accept it. I shined my light on everyone who would accept it. But mostly it felt as if people tolerated it or endured it. As if the imbalance of putting in effort was owed to them. As if it was normal that I put in time, effort and energy. As if it was normal my door was always open. I can tell you: it is not. Interaction takes at least two people. It took a me lot of energy. I put a lot of energy into changing myself. So, I became very flexible and adaptable to tailor interaction to the receiver. All in the hope that my intentions were met with the same intentions of investing in an open and warm relationship. The intentions were always right but in the process I might have scared some people with my approach and sometimes the intensity. Also, timing is important, the one behind the door must be conscious of the bliss a true connection will bring. I had to accept that I can not force a door open, you can only try to convince someone that they should let their door be opened.
As I said, we have all been hurt. We all wanted to stop trying and at moments we do no try anymore. That should not limit us in our consciousness, our hope and our efforts. Try not to hurt someone by offering them a closed door, do not let their attempts be in vain. In
somemost aspects of my life it is still hard to say: I need your help. Or to say: I want you to hear and see me. Or to reflect on: is it just that I feel neglected or is it because of my perception.Countless attempts I have made. Also, I can honestly say I thought that my door was never completely closed. Sometimes I felt and still feel hopeless and alone because so much effort has been in vain. But it was never hopeless and with much gratefulness I can say I have never fully been left alone. I have been blind to many attempts and efforts as have many been blind to mine. You are forgiven that you were not able to give to hoped-for response. I also forgive myself that I was not able to respond in ways that would benefit other and mostly myself. I saw and let existing relationships fall in decay but luckily the most important ones never died.
I went to search in various places for open doors. In places people tended to be more open, places where you learn new things. You have to open up yourself to someone teach you something. I went to search in places where there was enough common ground. I am happy I did. Effort from many sides were felt, to me those are mentally very healthy environments. I am grateful that for some aspects in my life I have found healthy environments. I want to continue to grow to see how doors are moving, my own and others. The movement of my own door and other’s doors can be influenced. In learning about this I am growing more conscious about healthy connections. By improving my ability to connect and by improving my capacity to build healthy relationships the basic human need for being part of a social structure is met. By searching and eventually finding environments, where there is a healthy social structure, I feel my mental health growing stronger.
I made many attempts and put much effort in finding new relations. It was never truly in vain: I have learned much. And, something that is given is never really lost, for I had already chosen it was not meant to be mine anymore.
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What aspects of myself do I associate myself with? When do we start to reflect?
A person has strength and weaknesses. Strength and weaknesses bring forth threats and opportunities. Under the right circumstances people are able to grow, sometimes circumstances force a person to grow. When we are learning or in hindsight what do we focus on? There should be a balance of focus on the positive and the negative. Most people tend to lean on way or the other. In the greater perspective when certain people lean to the positive and other lean to the negative there is balance among humanity. But people as a distinct entity should be balanced as well. In that way we are adaptable and resilient. When balanced we can be happy.
How you are influenced by negative or positive stimulations depends on how coloured your own perspective is. When someone is overly optimistic, do we follow in that perspective or do we tend to get more critical. In the end, one of the two person is going to be more critical than the other.
I want to be balanced my reactions to outer stimulants. I am able to rationally see the positive and negative consequences of inner or outer actions. Still my feelings tend to lean one way. Not too long ago, my overall state of mind was negative. Therefore, my emotional reaction to action and movement was dominated by negative thinking. In some aspects of life more than in other aspects, I thought in limitations, I thought of the disadvantages. This was all part of the cycle of negativity, I am still trying to turn the cycle the other way around. I am certain I can, at some point, as long as I actively try.
We, and I, tend to start reflecting when things are not going as well as you would like. We then tend to focus on what parts of our behaviour or strategy we have to improve. As I wrote about in a previous blog: in my environment, I was only told the things that should be improved. That way of interacting strengthened thinking critically. It supported focussing on the negative aspects. I was never satisfied of myself towards myself because I was conscious of the growth I still had to go through. Therefore, when I was looking backwards, I felt like I could have done better. When looking forwards, I raised the bar and strained myself to improve. Unfortunately, there was little emphasis on looking towards the present.
Thus, when I, and my environment with me, had moments of reflection there was little to no attention for the positive. There was an extensive amount of energy spent on the negative. There was no balance. I learned to associate myself with the negative. The learned to associate with all things negative in life. I am trying to change that.
I am capable of thinking balanced. Capable of thinking about the positive and negative. My emotion still leans towards the negative. Therefore, I am deliberately and actively focussing on the positive. This feels incredibly weird, it feels uncomfortable and unnatural. By being predominantly negative I forgot how to embrace positivity, love, and light.
There are many ways to teach you how to be positive. Most approaches in self-help books or positive psychology are too different from my current way of thinking. The approaches feel too rigorous and too forced. I believe slow and consistent change will be much more durable, with less pitfalls. I have always been inspired by great thinkers, mostly by philosophers and psychologists. One of the fathers of philosophy, Aristotle, laid the basis for reflection. All current methods can in ultimately be defined by the method upheld by Aristotle. To Aristotle happiness is the highest human good.
With his students he sat, preferably every evening to reflect. A day is short, though a lot can change in a day. The amount of time and energy you spent on reflecting can be influenced by how much has happened or how much time has passed in between. You are even able to have a brief moment of reflection every day, have one longer every week and even longer one every month. As I, you should first learn to reflect balanced before you use it set too remarkable changes. Reflection is a skill that must be honed.
With his students Aristoteles sat. Asking them three question which were open for discussion, every question was equally important and deserved full commitment in thought, time, energy and emotion. The last is gives hope, energy, thankfulness and pride. The first question is: What went well? The second is: what went badly. The third: what could be improved. I am not here to explain the method in full. I just wanted to share this method and with that a basis for reflection and introspection. I wanted to show that there should be a balance, a balance we aspire.
I do advocate that we should make reflection a normal part of our routine. We should do it on blissful, neutral and depressive days. It should be something to look forward to. A skill that you are improving. It is a way to bring your feelings more in line with your rationale and the other way around. Reflection is a way to balance your life. Therefore, it is crucial to embrace happiness.
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“How I fell into and rose from depression”
At the moment I am angry. I am angry. I feel the need to express myself. To let myself, people and the world know; “I am here”.
This anger is energy. I feel energy, the urge to do something. The situation I am in has made me angry. The anger provided by my situation gives me the energy to change something. I might change something in the situation, or I might change myself. In that case the something is ‘I’ that changes, it should be in a way so that I can cope with the situation. Between me and my situation exists a relationship, so three entities exist. When one of the three changes a new balance may proceed to exist. When I can change myself, the situation might no longer affect me. Therefore, the source of my anger would be cancelled out. Then there is no longer a flow of energy coming from the anger because it is non-existent. Therefore, I will again remain docile.
Though I can no longer push myself to change myself. At some point you just cannot accept the situation any longer. Then, change the situation or leave the situation. The first I can, the second I cannot. I can no longer accept how the situation is, therefore, this anger, this energy will keep me in an active state until have done what I could. I can accept that my efforts are without result, but I can no longer accept that I do not make the effort. I put too much effort in accepting the situation thus changing myself. I can no longer, I will put my effort in changing my situation. I know there will be results.
I am happy with this anger, it gives me energy. This energy gets me out of the docile state I have been into for too long. I feel that this energy might change me and that I may change that energy. The anger and energy I feel now stems from guilt. The guilt stems from being docile and putting effort in changing myself. But I can no longer justify that, I am out of excuses. I am angry at myself and the situation I have let myself into. Now I need to use this anger to do. I am motivated to do something out of this anger.
The guilt I feel has grown too much; I will tell you how it came to be. I was very unhappy with my situation; it made me angry. At first, I could not channel my anger in a fruitful way. I tried to change my situation with all my might. Though it was without result. The feeling of anger in combination with feeling powerless slapped me into a docile state. I felt guilty I was docile, but it felt less terrible that feeling powerless. Eventually the feeling of guilt made me was an escape for feeling powerless. I lost grip of the situation around me and let external forces shape my path. In no way I took matters into my own hands, I was docile. The situation around me changed in several ways but I remained docile. The feeling of being powerless started to change. I knew I was again capable of changing my situation for the better, but I remained docile. I forgot why I escaped to feeling guilt. But the guilt started to become too much to bear. It started to make me depressed. I was docile, had the feeling I was powerless and had no energy to do anything about it. A negative state of mind saps all life energy from a person. Your life turns into a negative cycle. You feel bad, you feed your body more poorly, you feed your mind negative thought and you feel that you do nothing to little about it to change it. You feel like you are a victim of the situation of yourself and the relation you have with the situation.
The feeling of being powerless changed and expanded. At first, I was powerless to change the situation but was able to change myself. Then, I could no longer change how I saw and coped with the situation. I became powerless to change myself. I could no longer accept and justify the three entities; the situation; myself; the relation between them. I changed myself to be docile, to be acceptive. I reached my limit; I could not see what I could still change. There was no energy anymore solely guilt and other energy draining thoughts and behaviour. In the process I learned to be docile. I learned to endure not to accept. People can endure much, very much.
Though I was so empty I did not even want to endure anymore. There was no more energy to be sapped from me. I could no longer escape the depressing, energy-draining feelings and thoughts. I was continuously feeling guilt that I let it come this far, that I did not put the effort in to change something in the process until this far. I was looking back. At some point you can no longer blame the situation. You can no longer deny that you yourself contributed to how things are now. Trying to escape only works for so long, in the awoken clear moments the guilt becomes unbearable so that you want to escape even more. At some point even when you try to escape through many means you will still feel the guilt lingering right beneath the situation. You no longer want to bear it and you have no idea how to cope with it. You know you do not want to live like that, living with that is just barely being alive, you are surviving. You are not living, you are surviving. Survival is hard, you want to start living again, but even with outside help you cannot find the energy. Enduring the inner contradiction of wanting to but also having no energy to do so is extremely hard. There is no energy. It is the bottom.
If it were a true state of survival with natural dangers and you would have that state of mind and amount of energy you would have died. With a true state of survival, I mean living outside in nature. Natural dangers that can kill you or lead to peak amounts of stress are temperatures, famine, viruses, creatures etc. You would have looked death in the eyes at some point. For example, if you experience extreme cold you will experience a high amount of stress that keeps your body and mind awake and pushes you to do something about it. Or when you lack food or nutrition the bodily pain and exhaustion you will feel will inflame your will to live, you will eat or drink anything. But when you are at the bottom you do not face such danger and peaks of stress. If you do face death a natural phenomenon occurs, you find the will to live. It is why many suicide attempts fail; your inner biology takes over and keeps you from dying. Even when you live at the bottom taking your own life is extreme. Even extreme depression, loneliness and guilt does not typically result into suicide. These people will endure living at the bottom.
Most people who live at the bottom have enough to stay alive. They are not challenged to do something about their situation, they are not truly externally motivated. Also, they will not permit themselves to feel or do positive things, all you want is just to escape the overarching negative state of mind. But in all cycles there are loopholes. Enduring a state of mind and body is very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable does not describe how uncomfortable it truly is, it is living at the bottom. I use this word so I can make the next widely accepted statement: “to grow you must leave your comfort zone”. I have learned how to endure a terrible mindset, terrible feelings and survivalist behaviour. It took me a great amount of time and energy to be able to live with such discomfort. The only way I could live with such a life is that I had means to escape from that life. The possibility to escape only prolonged the period I was enduring such a lifeless life.
In every clear moment I felt the guilt rising that was lingering beneath the surface. It was always lingering in my attempts to escape it and very rarely I would escape it for a short amount of time and would almost enjoy myself. Although, in such moments I was not truly myself. The attempts to free myself, to escape were all unsuccessful because in the end the negative thoughts came again. In the clear moments all I could do was face and endure the confrontation with myself until I found another way to escape. There was too little internal and external motivation, trust and energy to really do something to break the cycle of negativity. I knew that every time I escaped the cycle became a little stronger and brought me even further to the bottom. I was unable to think of somewhat healthy ways to truly feel ‘the will to live’. I knew stories of people that were able to let one extreme moment change their whole state of mind permanently. Most stories only led to a temporarily change in their state of mind. Some of those managed to change their life enough and some of those relapsed back into the cycle of negativity. The last group would have probably lost even more hope and trust that they would ever be able to break the cycle of negativity. An extreme moment can go either way, the more extreme the moment was to more risks are involved, and no one should voluntarily put their life at risk. Also, I was not certain how extreme the moment had to be. And even than the results would not be how I longed it to be. I reached this state of being by experiencing bad moments, but it took me long to reach and endure the bottom. I empowered the cycle of negativity and drowned myself in guilt and victimship. I became self-absorbed, I felt and understood that I let myself become that way. Still, I did not have the power to break the cycle or to overcome it or to find a loophole. I also knew that to keep successfully yet temporarily escaping I had to resort to more extreme measures, for example substance abuse.
I noticed in my clear moments that I felt worse and worse. I truly could not endure a worsening situation. But also, quite contradictory I could not overcome the negative feelings. What I could do was nothing, but nothing was also something. Keeping the cycle in place was a constant process, I actually had to do things to keep it working. So, I stopped doing anything, I did not know that was a turning point. A turning point that at this moment cost me a lot of energy to support, but nonetheless a turning point. I actively stopped destroying myself, I am not saying I started healing myself. By refraining myself from active self-destructive behaviour I stopped the acceleration of the cycle of negativity. I want to say I stopped some forms of escaping. In the end escaping makes me feel more terrible so I thought of ways to make myself unable to escape. Those ways would not immediately turn the cycle to go the other way, but they would indirectly support it. I never lost the hope that eventually I am able to change my situation for the better, at least now I would not let myself keep on worsening the situation. I kept myself from actively destroying myself by being passive, I had to let certain behaviour go. I needed to become docile in other ways, docile because of all the guilt I felt. I was able to stop substance abuse and I was able to stop smoking. In that way I had even less to do, less ways to distract myself from the cycle of negativity and the responsibilities I had to face. Stopping is passive and stems from docile behaviour. I made the first shift from turning active negative behaviour to passive negative behaviour.
Still there were many ways to distract myself, to keep myself from changing myself, the situation and the relationship between them. I did have to find new ways and sustain the current less unhealthy ways. I still wanted to be distracted while being passive. I sustained the watching of movies and series. I intensified the listening of music and broadened my listening pallet. I started reading more. I improved my cooking skills. Sometimes I even wanted to move my muscles by stretching or walking. At least other things than just lying down. I knew that in order to distract myself I need to be able ‘to lose’ myself in it, to escape in it. Therefore, learning completely new things were too hard if I set any goals.
At first, I was active in changing my situation, myself and the relation between them. After experiencing powerlessness to my situation, I became passive to my situation but remained active to change myself and the relation. I was unable to change the relation and became passive to that as well, I remained active to change myself. Though there was little room left to change myself positively. I could face but not influence my situation. I could endure but not accept my situation. Confrontation with my negative situation hurt. I would look away and started to escape. I was still able to change myself in that way. I actively started to change myself down a negative path of forced aversion. That led me into the cycle of negativity. At last, I became passive to myself as well, the cycle of negativity would no longer be actively maintained.
Now I want to focus a little bit more on the ‘now’, I am looking to the past again. For your sake as well, I will again.
Today I am angry, I am happy that I am angry. There is energy. In being passive, I have changed. I stopped to force myself to look away. I stopped to force myself to avert the confrontation of the situation. I have taken of many of the limitations I have forced on myself I thought that kept me from seeing and feeling harm from my environment. Though now it is clear it also supported me in falling into a self-absorbed perception of the three entities: the situation, myself and the relation between them. Today I am angry. I confronted my situation daily because I refrained myself from actively escaping. The daily confrontation makes me very uncomfortable. Yet I could endure because of my passive mindset.
But now I feel anger, I no longer want to be passive. I feel so uncomfortable that it makes me frustrated. That frustration has turned into anger. That anger gives me energy. I have the energy to change things. And I will. I will definitely. And I will change my situation. I will change it in a way that it can never become a source of frustration. I will also change myself; I will not doubt myself. I will pick up the sword again, and now I will never back down again. I will continue my path. I will continue my journey.
If you know someone who is suffering, please share this with them. Recognition brings comfort.
The way of self 