The proverbial they will often tell you that us humans use somewhere between 8-15% of our total brain, presenting limitless possibility should we dare to imagine.
It is, in my experience, true to say that we create our own light, it is not the individual events that cause happiness in our lives, but the way in which we perceive them. If this is true then the opposite must also be true. I’ve come to believe that depression is nothing more than the manifestation of our predeliction for dwelling on negative events in life.
We see it all the time in happy people, this remarkable ability to let their troubles be water under a bridge over which they cross to step over the bad times. How is it that these individuals can live a life tasting all the sweet flavours this existence has to offer rather than just surviving the bad times and relying on regression to the norm?
Maybe it is a conscious choice to be happy, maybe it is ingrained in us through our upbringing, maybe it is the manifestation of living too much in this comercialsed and materialistic world, far removed from our base nature or perhaps it is simply a matter of training one’s mind?
I don’t know the answer but it is true to say that knowing it’s possible eases the pain.
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I have always been a bit envious of people who can move past things and get on with their life. I know I shouldn’t compare myself with others, but I wish I was like that. My anxiety causes me to worry about so much that I can’t enjoy things and I hate that. Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s about just training our minds…
It’s a curious thing, when I was going through it, I would’ve been so mad at people who told me to just snap out of it. As if it were our fault or as if it was something we could just change. During my recovery I kept a mood journal, a practice I somewhat maintain years later. Looking back through it one day I realised I had changed my mind, I had begun to snap out of it and started to see the world as it was.
Of course it’s an inaccurate and inelegant way to phrase it, it is not so easy to change your mind and takes considerable time and effort.
At some point you realise it is a lifelong recovery, almost like a daily practice of positive thinking that needs to be cultivated in the long term. It doesn’t matter which toolbox you find yourself using, you’ve got to dust it off and use the tools regularly or you’ll start to go backwards. Like all things in life, use it or lose it.