Thank you all for the comments and emails about my last post.
It’s really amazing how simply sharing honestly what’s going on between my ears can help to lift the negativity from my life.
And now, the trick is to keep it lifted.
One of the problems I’ve come across in my own head is the difference between sharing our pain and focusing on it. When I share about it honestly, whether it’s face to face with a friend, family member, or mentor, writing about it here, or writing in a personal journal, it does help to relieve it.
But it doesn’t necessarily solve the root problem. Like taking an aspirin for a brain tumor, it may provide relief for the symptom, but it doesn’t get to the core issue.
When there is pain that is deep enough to cause a problem (like addiction or depression), the symptom may need to be dealt with first, because if we don’t deal with that, we may never get down to the actual cause. I know that when I was drinking, there was no way that I could have adjusted my attitudes or changed my thinking enough to eliminate what was driving me to the bottle in the first place. And when I’m depressed, I have neither the desire nor the ability to see that it just might be possible to make my life better than it is.
But if we focus too much on the symptom, and never deal with the root cause, the symptom will just keep on appearing, and appearing, and appearing, continuing the cycle.
The best “cure”, from what I’ve learned, is a change in attitude and habitual thinking. And that usually takes time.
The cool thing is that we do have all of the control here. We can choose what we think, what we feel, what we do. And when we think or feel like we don’t have that choice, we can choose to learn from others how to connect with and exercise the power we always have, but may not be aware of.
It’s a beautiful day, and a beautiful life.
Thank you for reading.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
– “And when I’m depressed, I have neither the desire nor the ability to see that it just might be possible to make my life better than it is.”
If we dwell on how to make life “better” when you pondering on the worst case, you are looking at the bad part. Doing such will not lift us out of depression. To accept the worst case, we need find “good” in this worst case. There is this old Chinese story about an old man who lives at country border hits disasters in a roll, however, it all turns out that these disaster leads him to some good suprises (although the good suprises leads him back to diaster). The story says there is no real bad or good, it just the way we view things.
We all worry about money and our dreams and responsibilities. But my best time is not the richest time, most my dreams are not realistic, and my responsibilities are not strictly defined.
Hui Zhou:
Excellent points! There are so many times in the past when I felt like my life was falling apart around me, but the outcome ended up being better than I could have imagined.
My life today, right now, is a great example of that. I would not be married to my favorite person in the world, be living in one of the most beautiful areas in the world, or even have this blog if it weren’t for the challenges I’ve faced in the past.
Thank you for your excellent comment!