Being in a bad headspace. Being in a rut.

Understanding

As with anything understanding a rut can help us, deal with it more effectively.

What causes ruts?

Ruts are normal. Human beings experience them. No one is always perfectly on point, even though, we all wish we were. There are numerous causes to being in a bad headspace. Sometimes it has to do with the basics like sleep and hydration not being taken care of. And sometimes, it is a game that we lost, that tips us off, or a fight with a loved one. This may sound funny, but the weather can play a huge roll, as well hormones. We are incredibly complex beings, and everything that we are exposed to has an effect on us, therefore also everything we are exposed to might cause a rut. Sometimes a rut is caused by overwhelm. We have a lot to do and start avoiding it, which ends up getting us into a rut.

Our mindset in and of itself, will (most likely) not cause a rut, but if we tend to think negatively we are more prone to ruts and if we tend to overdo the positive thinking, we might overwhelm ourselves causing a rut as well.

How do ruts make us feel and act?

To be clear: A rut is NOT depression. While we can feel a little “depressed” when we are in a rut, this is still very different from actually being depressed. If you feel as if your rut is more than just a rut and seems to be more like an actual depression, seek professional help!

How a rut makes us feel depends on the person. Feelings of sadness, a lack of motivation, constantly being annoyed or very irritable are quite usual. It is also common to engage in some form of avoidance. I personally tend to sleep in and play Age of Empires all day long. We do tend to reach for our addiction of choice when we are avoiding. It helps to explicitly know that in order to be able to counteract it. We might also feel worthless, lazy and ugly.

How to get out of a rut?

I am sorry, I do not have a magic pill to cure a rut. Getting out of a rut can feel like very hard work. And there is no one-size-fits-all approach. I would even argue, that getting out of a rut, heavily depends on the cause of the rut.

Do a refresh/reset

Sometimes all it takes is a little change. This can be achieved a number of different ways. I would advice to try, what feels right for you in any given moment:

Physical

Change your environment -move furniture, change decorations-
Clean
Declutter
Wear different clothes
Shower
Have a new experience

Mental

Try getting into a different mindset
change up your routine

Remember the Goal/Make a plan

This is very closely related to a mindset refresh and it is highly effective. Remember who we want to be. Reevaluate our lives. Set a plan for the next 3 months. Maybe make a new habit tracker. But remember where we want to be going.

Sometimes, we just need to take a little action. I am not talking about moving mountains. I am talking about taking a shower, taking out the trash or writing the first paragraph of that essay that we have been putting off. Make a plan. But do not stop there, take action on the first item!

Opposite Action

This is a skill that is actually taught in DBT. It suggests that we do the exact opposite of what we feel like doing. That way, we conquer our inner demons and actually make meaningful progress. And therefore we end up with a positive memory.

Practice Self-Compassion

This is probably the most important of them all. Because ruts tend to make us feel worthless, it is very easy to be down on ourselves. And that will only get us down even more. Always remember that regret is only fruitful, if we manage to improve in the future. It is merely detrimental, if we use regret to self-loath. Try to assess your emotions rationally. They probably have some sort of reason. And they are valid. The trick is to not give power to sadness and self-loathing. Which is a lot easier said then done, but nevertheless, maybe there is something, that would make us feel better, and no matter if the emotion “makes perfect sense ” or not, we should definitely do the thing that makes us feel better. Sometimes taking a break is the only right course of action.

Start Small

This is especially effective, if part of why we are in a rut is that we feel overwhelmed. Learn to take your to do list one step at a time. Learn to prioritize. Understand that it is never big deeds that make us as a person. It is the small daily things that we do. They compound over time and turn us into the person we are. One run, does not make me an athlete. Nor does one glass of wine make me an alcoholic.

In Conclusion

Ruts are part of being human. They suck. But they are not the end of our lives. Taking a break, taking care of the basics, refreshing and tackling our to-do lists one piece at a time are incredibly powerful tools in handling a rut. And always remember: Our value as a person, does not depend on our emotion, nor on our current level of energy or on how good we think we are. Our value as a person is intrinsic. That means no matter what we do, or how we feel, we are still incredibly valuable

Just another excuse

We often think to ourselves: “I am not as good, as that other person, because I don’t really like the thing I need to do, to achieve my goal.” or “I am just not as talented.” We allow those excuses to hold us back. And while I do think that everyone has at least one passion, and I also think that we all should pursue that passion, there is one thing, we tend to overlook. Even with talent and passion no road is going to be entirely easy. We always try to make ourselves believe that for people other than us, achieving greatness is so easy and effortless. That is probably because they make it look easy and effortless, as well as the fact that in this social media world we only share our personal highlights, rather than the tough journey. But really the truth is: When we want to excel at anything. And even if we only want to be good at it, we will need to put a lot of hard work into it.

Talent may have an impact on how big or small the hurdles are and passion impacts, how easily we can overcome those, but there always comes a point, where things turn hard. Even if you are a talented runner and you love running, after a few kilometers, you will start to feel tired, you will feel like giving up. That is normal. And it applies to anything. No good habit will always be easy to execute. Regardless of whether we study or work or are in training, there will come a point, where it feels hard and we will have to make the choice of either pushing through or give up. But when we make that choice, we can not let our current levels of passion and talent decide for us. Because when things get hard, our passion often drops.

We should always remember that anyone who achieved anything did so by working hard. Yes, the result can be incredibly inspiring, when we see it on social media. But we need to realize that we can do it as well, we don’t have to be on the side-lines. We put ourselves there, by making excuses for not going out and working on getting, what we really want.

This especially applies to our own happiness. We see countless happy people online. And we get jealous, because they are so happy and we even struggle with getting out of bed in the morning. But how did these people become happy? Well first of all: they might not be, since social media only contains this perfectly curated picture of them. But if they truly are happy, then it is because they put in the work. Because they payed attention and figured out, what activities make them happy. The figured out, what the version of themselves they would like to be and figured out what habits will help them get there.

But they did not stop there. Once they knew all the steps they need to take, they started taking control of their life. Their time, their bodies and their minds as well as their priorities and their physical world. By adjusting their surroundings, their mindsets and the way they spend their time. In short they curated both their physical and mental world to be closer to the ideal that they are trying to achieve.

Anyone who has ever tried to implement a new habit knows how tough this is. We all have asked ourselves who we are and struggled to find an answer. That is what I mean, when I say that being happy requires a lot of work, just like anything else that is above average. We find out who we are by raising our awareness. For how we feel. But it does not stop there, since we can control who we are by setting priorities and habits. But of course, these things have to be implemented and adjusted. Which takes time. A lot of time. And it takes a lot of self-compassion. Because we are not going to get it right right away. Maybe that is the toughest part of them all.

There are two key take-aways: Respect and honor those who made it, because no one is born great and it took them a lot of work to get there. As well as: We can all make it, we just have to put in the work. Let’s stop making excuses. Let’s stop comparing ourselves. Let’s start being inspired by the success of others and start changing the way how we behave (and think) such that we become a little more successful ourselves, today.

Mindfulness: The practice of curating the life you want

There are a number of buzzwords on the internet: Minimalism, Essentialism and Intentionalism. Mindfulness is what they all have in common. When practicing minimalism we are being mindful with the focus on our surroundings, when practicing essentialism, we are focusing on how we spend our time. Mindfulness can make us very happy. And I would go as far as saying many people are unhappy, because they are not being mindful.

But what does being mindful really mean? A minimalist, does not have less stuff, because he or she hates stuff. An essentialist, does not carefully choose what he will work on next, because he is lazy. We practice minimalism, because we want to appreciate the things we own. And we want to only own things that add value. And we focus on the essential 20% that produce 80% of the result, because we want to be effective rather than efficient. We want to do the right thing, rather than a lot of thing. It is the difference between being productive and being busy. It really is about value.

Why are things related to mindfulness such buzzwords? Truth is: we now need it more than ever. In today’s day and age it is so incredibly easy to not be mindful. To go shopping and impulse buy all the things that we think are awesome, but we really don’t need them. It is so easy to just spend hours on the couch watching TV and being genuinely bored. We do it because it is the path of least resistance. And then when it gets real bad, we get addicted to shopping and watching TV. Our brains get stimulated by pretty colors and release feel good hormones, why would we ever do anything else? Because we are unhappy.

We often wonder why we are unhappy. But are not even mindful enough to notice why it is we are unhappy. Or perhaps, we are just not willing to admit why it is we are feeling unhappy. We may even have a vision of who we want to be and it might even literally include “I am not someone who spends all day binging TV.”, and yet we turn a blind eye to what could actually make us feel happier and more fulfilled.

But how can we become more mindful? It is all about value and realizing our own limitations. The space we have in our homes is limited. Our time, attention and emotional capacity are limited. So we must learn to spend those resources on “things” that add value to our lives. That can mean different things. Some things make life easier, those are mostly tools, but if we don’t use them, there is really no point in keeping them. Some things add value by making us smile. If we are excited to read that novel that is on our shelf, we should read it. Otherwise, we don’t need that pile of paper. And if that TV show that we are watching is making us smile or ponder deep philosophical topics, go for it!

Maybe one of the most stigmatized thing is to “get rid” of people who don’t add value to your life. Yes, I know this sound very harsh. And no, “getting rid” of those people does not mean killing them. But it means to spend significantly less or better yet no time with them.

So for being mindful about possessions I recommend reading Marie Kondo’s Life Changing Magic of Tidying up. But in essence it is about questioning whether an item “sparks joy” or is useful. And useful means we have used it in the last few months.

For being mindful how we spend our time, consider this: “Priorities are what we spend your time on.” And “We are what we do on a regular basis.” Let’s think about who we want to be. Figure out our goals and your vision. Because unless we do, we don’t know what it means to spend time on something that adds value. I am not saying to never ever do the dishes again. But quit that emotional shopping habit and get a dishwasher. And once we know who we want to be, we will know what we want to be spending our time on. No worries, it’s okay if that changes. But we have to start somewhere. Then every time we go to do something, whatever that may be, we must ask ourselves: is this who I want to be? Do I really want to spend my precious time on this? This also means that we will not be multitasking. I have mad a whole post about this, so I will not be elaborating on it.

There is one more category that we have not yet addressed. And that is our mindsets. We have to be mindful about those as well. The mindset is the sum of our thinking habits. That includes anything from how we think about ourselves to our attitude towards the world and our work. The way we think reveals a lot about who we are. Therefore curating our thoughts will impact who we are. This one might be the most difficult one because we often don’t catch what we are thinking in each given moment and often we have multiple thoughts at the same time. Once we also have our emotions mix in with our thoughts, it becomes even more complex. And yet, being aware of how we tend to think has a huge impact on our mood, our image of ourselves and therefore also our confidence. I hence recommend trying to be mindful about our thoughts and curate them.

One more thing we need to talk about: Being mindful of our emotions. Our emotions are very strong. And is alright. But we need to learn to express them. We are unable to deal with emotions, if we are not capable of explaining them at least to some degree. I am currently doing a simple exercise that helps with identifying emotions: It is a bullet point journal (no, not a bullet journal). Each bullet point refers to one thing that happened and how it made me feel. I keep it in two columns one for negative and one for positive emotions. I will write 1-3 bullets in each column each night. This is of course very customizable and allows us to learn to identify emotions, but also is a nice journal to look back at and design your life around. Of course more traditional journaling as in: writing down what happened, how it made you feel and how to proceed in more detail is also a great way to become more mindful of our emotions.

In summary we need mindfulness to allocate our limited resources in the way that will create the most value. This is why I think that making a significant difference between the buzzwords I mentioned in the beginning makes no sense. Of course minimalism has as lightly different focus than essentialism, but they come from the same place. And that really is not a mindset of scarcity. It is about being grateful and fully present in the moment. It is about choosing and curating the life we want, rather than going the unhappy path of least resistance. It is about building your happiness.

Inspiration & Ownership

When we start our lives, we are all about surviving. It is not even something we learn. It is an instinct embedded into us. The thing is: as we grow and surviving really happens passively, we are at risk of starting to drift. Since our survival is ensured, there really is no reason to improve. There is no reason to struggle hard and we simply drift through life.

There is nothing wrong with taking a break and enjoying one’s life for a bit. Everyone needs that. But if we stop having a vision, a goal to work towards, we will slowly but surely end up loosing our purpose. And when there is no purpose why would we get out of bed in the morning? Why would we leave this perfectly cuddly world that is so kind to us? It makes me feel depressed. And I end up feeling more dead than alive. When we are at this point is it high time we do something about our lethargy.

The first step is to find inspiration. It is about what we enjoy. It is about listening to podcasts, reading books and watching You Tube videos to figure out what it is we want. Or at least in what direction we want to go. We need to figure out, what makes us happy. We need to envision the life, we would love to live. The kind of life, that would have us be excited to get out of bed at 8am rather than at noon.

But inspiration is not enough. It is very nice to know what we want and then just go off and drift in the comfort of our lives some more. There are many reasons for this. Fear of failure, laziness and a sense of pointlessness to name just a few. Overcoming these is very difficult and every human being struggles. But there is no point in giving in to those obstacles. Because every day that we spend sleeping until 11am has us feeling a little bit worse about ourselves and makes it more difficult for us to actually be able to achieve our goals.

Truth is: we need to take ownership. When we get inspired, we are all motivated and want to go get whatever is the cause of our inspiration, but that only applies while we are in some sort of fantasy about our own lives. The moment we come back to reality, we fall back into our comfort. And this is where we need to be doing some work. We need to take ownership of our lives. We are the only ones living our lives. Which means we are the only one’s in charge. No one will ever do anything to improve our lives for us. No one can. There is this very powerful realization, that we are alone. No one cares. Yes, this can be incredibly devastating. If no one cares, why would I get out of bed? It doesn’t matter. Well… no one cares except us. It doesn’t matter except to ourselves. Yes, if we don’t get to achieve what we wanted to achieve, no one will care, but us. And this is powerful. It means that the relationship we have to ourselves and our lives is crucial. It means that the only person who we ever have to ask forgiveness of is ourselves.

And there is another big misunderstanding: to achieve our goals and take ownership, we need to get out of bed and off our butts. But other than that there does not need to be grand changes. Changing and adjusting our routines little by little will have a major positive impact on our lives. It is mostly the mindset that needs to be changed fundamentally. We need to adjust our mindset to be focused on owning our lives. We need to monitor our thinking. And this is important. The things we think is like talking to ourselves and if we say something often enough we will end up believing it. That can be very powerful if we control the way we talk to ourselves.

More often than not however we are blissfully unaware of what we are thinking at any given moment. There are a few things that can help. One of them is having a conversation with ourselves about what we think and how we feel. No one needs to know other than us. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves. And if we feel like a complete failure, maybe we can redirect our attention to the things that we haven’t failed, or even better find a way to improve. One more very effective way to monitor what we think is journalling. This can be in the form of regular check-ins with ourselves, or just random journalling about anything that is on our minds.

We need to ban negativity from our minds, that often comes in the form of perfectionism or realism and it causes a lot of stress which in turn costs us a lot of energy and has as drift into lethargy which is not what we want. We want to be inspired and take ownership. Never forget that we need regular boosts of inspiration, otherwise we might forget, why we are striving to build a certain life every day. Ownership of our thoughts, our mindset, our habits our daily actions. Ownership of our lives. Living and surviving are two different things. One is inspired and full of deliberation and happiness. The other is purposeless. It is up to us to choose. Only us.

The Formula to Changing Mindsets

I promised to do a post on how to improve one’s mindset, with the goal to have a mindset, that allows us to improve ourselves, out of a habit. And for that to happen, we first need to do the most difficult shift: We need leave our passive mindset behind and start forming an active one.

Let me first clarify one thing: A mindset can actively be changed, but it is like changing a habit. Changing the way you think, requires time and patience and a lot of work. But the nice thing is, that the moment we take action, we do something, that is not typical to our current mindset, so we already took the first step to an active mindset.

Goals

To avoid, changing our mindset into something that is not better than what we are entertaining now, it is advisable to first define a goal. Often that is something that emerged from our dreams and is some sort of a soft version of them. It is something that makes us truly happy. Our goal is (usually) basically happiness. If we don’t know what that is, it helps, to make a list. Not only a list of things that we do enjoy, but maybe also of the things, that we do like. For me one of the most striking ways to know that I truly enjoy doing something, is when I do not feel the need to check my phone. These things will definitely end up on the list of things that I do enjoy.

The Plan

We cannot achieve our goals from one day to another. That is, why up until now, our goals were merely dreams rather than something we could take action on. In order to achieve our goals we need to divide it into smaller goals. And maybe we need to have different smaller goals in different aspects of our lives.

We need to add dates to these smaller goals and then, we need to figure out, what steps we can take today, to achieve those goals. We need at least weekly when not daily goals, little steps we take towards our big goal, in order to be able to move forward. A goal that is only set for a month is too big for us to oversee. We don’t know where to start, which is, why we need to break it down.

We need to implement some sort of accountability system. That can be a to do list, a project list with dates, a habit tracker, you name it. But the important thing is, that it makes sure, that we do take action and start achieving our goals. We are way more likely to fail, if we do not write it down and are not accountable.

But with accountability comes the instance that we do achieve our weekly goals. It is important, that we acknowledge those small victories, because without them we would never reach the final goal. Yes, our success is, the sum of a million little, daily actions that got us one step closer to were we wanted to be, but that is exactly, why we need to celebrate those little things. They are the stepping stones. They are the foundation to who we want to become.

The Mindset itself

The mindset is the set of attitudes. Therefore, in this step we have a look at our intentions. It is about who we want to be on less obvious level. It is about taking control of our mind. Do we want to hate the world and everything and everyone in it? Or do we choose to give people the benefit of the doubt. Do we choose to complain about, or do we choose to fix the things that bother us? What kind of aura do we want to have? Do we want to be the person that doesn’t really care about politics, or do we have a refined opinion on it? How do we choose to treat others? How do we choose to treat ourselves?

There are big trendy attitudes like minimalism and the “cool ones”, who just do not care about anyone and anything. But we don’t need to adapt to one of those. We can create our own mindset according to the person we strive to be. Finding who we want to be is a very personal things, but usually our goals give us a good starting point, to think about who we want to be, but sometimes we also need to adjust our goals to our intentions. It is a back and forth, a journey to find balance between our intentions and our actions.

Implementing a new mindset is however tricky. It starts with awareness. We need to keep questioning, whether what we are doing matches our intentions. The next thing is to adjust the space around us. It is to take care of the exterior. That includes the space we live in, but also our desk at work, our cars, our appearance. All those things reflect back onto us and help us to become the person we want to be. A certain space reinforces certain thought patterns and the thought patterns are exactly what we want to take care of.

Then we also need to implement habits, that reinforce our mindset. We want to respect ourselves? How about we start respecting our time and stop doing things, that don’t bring us closer to our goal or that we don’t really enjoy. We could also take care of our health and start going for a run once a week. Or focus more on nutrition. Maybe we want to respect our hobbies. Maybe we want to give more importance to other people than to ourselves, so we could spend more quality time with friends and family. Maybe we want to lead a productive life, so we focus on working productively without distractions for an hour straight, every day.

The last step is to find out, why we want to become that person. Why we have chosen this particular mindset. And to envision the person we want to become. And set up reminders of that throughout our space. Find inspiration. On YouTube, Pinterest, or wherever you find your inspiration. But do not scroll mindlessly. Go on a quest for inspiration and don’t just consume, but try to bring that inspiration into your life, by putting up notes or pictures on your mirror, at your desk, your screen safer, you phone background. Because you can have chosen to become a certain person all you want, we are humans and we do have emotions. That inspiration and the why are what makes our emotions cooperate. It is what helps us not just make the decision, but enables us, to follow through. It will be what makes sure, tough times are not the usual state.

Remember that this is a journey. Our mindset does not change within a week. And maybe it turns out, that we found a mindset and tried to implement it, but it didn’t suit us. Then we have to reassess and adapt. And try again. And that is okay. We do not need to have it all figured out instantly. It will happen. But it will take some time. It has to grow first.

The Mindset

A Mindset. What is it? Can I eat it? No. A mindset is not eatable, but it can include eatable things. Allow me to explain. Google defines Mindset to be a person’s set of attitude. Even though very accurate this does not help anyone unless one already knows what a mindset is.

A mindset does not include emotional state, attitude may. Even though emotions and mindset do affect each other. But is one important difference: The mindset can and should be a conscious choice, whereas emotions are out of our control. As a result, the mindset is more steady than emotions.

How we handle our emotions may very well be a matter of our mindset. And how we choose to form our mindset may be influenced by our emotions. But they are not the same. Mindset can include eatable things, as it determines, what exactly we think about food.

The dictionary defines Mindset as a person’s way of thinking and her opinions. I like this definition. Because we can choose the way we think. We get to have control over that. Our mindset includes every attitude and also our general approach to life, the universe and everything. It includes our attitude towards working, relationships, spirituality, money, health, politics and climate change. As well as our opinion on art and literally everything around us. It also includes our goals and our wishes. Our desires and dreams. And our attitude towards those.

The most known and hyped mindsets are probably the minimalist mindset and the mindful mindset. But I do not believe that we have to choose one of the two, to form our own mindset. Keep in mind, that the mindset is probably one of the most personal things. I believe that a mindset can be changed. I believe everyone should tailor their mindset to their own needs to find happiness. But that is a whole new blogpost, that is what I am planning to write next.

A mindset does not only define our way of thinking and our attitude, a mindset can and in my opinion should define our whole life. The reason for that is simple. We have control over our mindset, if we define it such that it will take control of our life, we control our life by transitivity.

A passive mindset, will not affect a person’s life very much, in contrast to the active one. To understand that imagine Anna being criticized by her friend. She understands and even agrees with the criticism and moves on with her life. If Anna entertains an active mindset, she will improve, it may take her days, weeks or months depending on what the criticism was about, but in due time, she will not repeat that mistake. Anna takes responsibility for her life. And she deals with things. If she had a passive mindset, Anna would nod and smile and forget about it. She agrees, but her mindset is not to take action.

Improvement comes easier if one has an active mindset. Because with an active mindset, we have realized that this world does not do anything for us. As long as we have a passive mindset, our lives will not change the slightest bit. At least not in the direction we want. Because we may have dreams… but those are not coming true by chance. And concerning the little things in life, we don’t even really know what we want. We don’t really care. A passive mindset is just the result of ones upbringing. Just the sum of one’s surroundings.

An active mindset does not only contain the dream, it contains the steps to reach it. It contains a detailed roadmap. Someone with an active mindset will check back in with that roadmap and see if his or her actions bring him or her closer to that dream. Which at that point is not a dream anymore, but a goal.

The problem with switching from a passive mindset to an active one is, that it is so much work. We don’t only have to figure out what we want and how to get there. We have to motivate ourselves. And that turns out to be way more difficult, that it sounds. Taking the action of switching mindset, is already something that would be inherent to the active mindset, that is the very thing we are trying to acquire. And so we end up in a vicious cycle.

Most people with passive mindsets do not even realize, that their mindset is passive. Because it is how they have always lived. And when they don’t feel their best about their lives, they don’t realize, that it is not just a little thing bothering them. It is not just their job, friend or partner that is problematic. It is their entire mindset. Their way of thinking. Their attitude. That makes them unhappy. And they do not realize that unless they find a way to fix that, they will never find true peace and true self-confidence.

In addition I believe that many young people don’t quite understand the concept of a mindset. They all want to grow up and be their own boss, but they cannot take control of how they think, because they are still entertaining the same mindset they entertained as teenagers and children. I think, that we cannot be truly gown-up unless we understand how to take control of our own mind. This is true freedom. True independence.

What we want to vs. what we have to do

There is no such thing as “I have to do this.” But the alternative is to deal with the consequences.

Last week was exhausting. I had a midterm on Friday and the whole week I kept thinking: “I am so exhausted. I don’t want anything but sleep, but I have to keep going. I need to study.” But when the midterm was over and I had some time to make new to do lists and think about my whole situation I noticed a few things.

My real problem was my mindset
I wanted to study. I did not want to be sleeping or binging TV
But I couldn’t, because I was so tired
I’m not tired because of the workload, I am tired because of my mindset and the season

The more we force ourselves to do stuff, we don’t feel like wanting to do, the more tired we get mentally and the less energy we have. Often we just need to remember, why we want to do something. And remember, that we really don’t have to do it, if we don’t want to. This is a very empowering shift in mindset. It allows us to get back in control.

The other problem is the season. There are really nice aspects to it: it is cuddly weather and we get to wear the comfy clothes and drink tea and hot coco all Sunday long. It is perfectly acceptable to just stay in bed and do nothing for a little. We get chestnuts and gingerbread, chocolates and cookies. We light the scented candles and start listening to all the beautiful winter songs again. On the other hand there is the darkness and the cold. We get a Vitamin D deficiency. We dial back our physical activity. And this is what makes us so tired. For me there really just is one thing: more working out and a better sleep schedule. It gives a sense of control and it battles the exhaustion.

And again: we do not have to work out. But I want to. Because I want to study. And I want to be confident. And I want to have energy. And I know that regular work-outs will provide all those things.

Dealing with getting worse

When the leaves fall and the sky starts crying many of us just want to hide and cry as well. Autumn is known for causing depression. But it is even worse, when it coincides with us failing to keep moving towards our vision. Because then all we can do is crumble. And in a matter of days we are back to the very dark places we thought we had left behind for good.

We don’t talk about it, because we are ashamed of ourselves, for not keeping up the good work. For breaking the promises to ourselves. Again. We keep telling the people around us, we are fine, because we do not feel entitled to feel bad. And with us not telling how we actually are, we detach from the people around us. And just like that our entire lives become empty and cold.

We find ourselves having a tinnitus again. Find our feet tickling until we loose all feeling in them. And then we may realize that we have been not taking our medication properly for weeks. Our sleep starts being interrupted. Dreams haunting us. We keep being tired, even though we know we are getting enough sleep.

And we blame ourselves for all of it. We start hating ourselves for letting it all slide. We try to get our lives back on track. Try to focus on our visions. Try to do that homework that we have been putting off. Try to get out of bed. But nothing can stop the sadness inside us. And we know one thing: Even though we try. Even though we try to push away all the negativity, the moment one single thing goes wrong, we will fall. We are fine. For now. But there is nothing we can do to stop the sadness. To stop the cold. To stop the loneliness.

But even though we know we will fall at some point. We keep fighting. Some of us do for the ones close to us. Some do, because they do not want to admit, that they have issues, that they need to address. And some just don’t see the point. I tried to deal with it. I tried to make it go away for good. I know it won’t.

Sometimes life is not about making everything perfect. Sometimes life is about making it through. Sometimes it is about keeping the darkness at bay rather than destroying it. It cannot be destroyed. It will not go away. It will linger beneath the surface and break through at some point. All I want to do, is to make sure it doesn’t destroy me when that point comes. And at some point that has to be good enough.

But how can we make it through? It is a matter of balance in attitude and mindset. For one we have to dump perfectionism. And on the other hand we cannot give up. We need to get stuff done. We have to keep making progress.

We have to get rid of perfectionism, because if we don’t we will never be happy with our progress. And we will keep beating ourselves up.

And we need to figure out what is the most important thing to do. We need to not get overwhelmed. What we do does not have to be perfect, it does not have to be a huge task. But it has to be something. This is what makes sure, that once we feel like working towards our visions again, we don’t give up immediately because the things we did not do pilled up.

Getting motivated may be difficult, but we can, by remembering the recent things that we are pleased with or proud of. And then it is just one step at a time. Living every day a little better than the last one.

Happiness and Mental Illness

There is no denying that our happiness affects our mental health. However I do not think that being happy implies being mentally healthy. And I do not think that someone with a mental illness cannot be happy.

I think the issue is a misconception on happiness itself. There exists the idea that happiness is given to individuals. And we judge whether or not someone is happy by his material possessions and the relationship the person has. Or how intelligent the person is. But that is not enough. Things and knowledge on their own do not make happy.

So what does? Taking responsibility for our own happiness. Happiness is not given. It is worked for. We need to find out what we want. And then realize that a lot of the things that we want… we already have. And we learn to take a break and appreciate that.

Being happy does not mean we are never sad anymore. It does not mean we do not get triggered anymore. The urges don’t just go away magically. We even may still have to go see a therapist.

I think the key to being happy despite a mental illness is to be able to distinguish emotions from rationality. Sometimes we get hurt for no obvious reason. A trigger. A friend who said something that hurt us. But we keep wondering why we suddenly feel so bad. In those cases it is crucial to allow the emotions. To allow ourselves to feel the emotions but to acknowledge that there is no reason for them. Which does not mean invalidating them. It just means that we know that even though we feel bad, on a rational basis those feelings do not mean that we have a bad life or are genuinely unhappy.

This takes practice. And it requires one crucial mindset: The mindset of being the one’s in charge for our happiness. Because to be able to see what we just feel and what is actual truth, we have to be willing to look at our reactions more closely. We have to be willing to sometimes not have an explanation. But isn’t thinking: “I am just tired, that’s why I am so sad.” or “I feel bad and there is no real reason for it.” better than thinking: “Everyone around me hates me.”? One is accepting our own weakness. The other is blaming everyone around us for our own misery. One is taking responsibility and allowing ourselves, to be who we really are. The other is being unjust to other people by blaming them for something they had (possibly) no doing in. One comes from a gentle and kind mindset. From the kind of mindset that allows us to love yourselves, the other comes from a cold, negative and angry place.

I am not one for lying. I don’t say we should always just blame our own weakness, or the weather for when we feel bad. Sometimes there are reasons. But as someone who tends to mask pain with anger, I know I am likely to try to search for someone to blame and bend the truth to my will.

But that is toxic. It has the power to destroy relationships. And it puts more negativity into the world. Which is why I think we need to learn to be okay with us not being alright. And realize that it does not generally mean, we are unhappy. Not unless we have the mindset that makes us think we are unhappy. And it is our responsibility to adopt the mindset that will let us heal and make us happy. For me that is positivity and gratitude.

Minimalism: The art of appreciating one’s possessions

The term minimalism has been thrown around the internet a lot. But why? Why does everyone suddenly want to de-clutter and have tidy spaces. Why are Instagram and Pinterest filled with the most beautiful pictures of homes? And why do people look at these picture envying the people living in the spaces depicted?

The movement seems to come from the notion that people who have less can be perfectly happy and that therefore it is not stuff, that makes happy. I think in fact it is our relationship and our approach to things that can contribute to our happiness. And this is exactly the point that makes minimalism a top for this blog, where I constantly stress the importance of a positive mindset. A positive approach to life, to the universe and… to everything, really. So let’s explore how minimalism can help finding the right approach to our possessions.

Everyone who has jumped into minimalism will have come across Marie Kondo’s “The Life changing Magic of tidying up”. It is basically a book on how to de-clutter and finding everything you keep a new home. And this thought I found so very inspiring. She talks about possessions almost as if they were conscious beings. If she discards something she thanks the item for its services. And I find that this gratitude is very helpful. Not only in discarding things but also in our everyday approach to items. But in order to be able to be grateful for something we need to not value our possessions in the first place and this is where minimalism strikes.

What items do we need? Marie Kondo’s hero-question is: “Does this spark joy?” And sure, there are things that do not in particular spark joy, but thinking about it, those items do make our lives a lot easier. For me the first thing that would come to mind are tissues. But usually “Does it spark joy?” Will help to discard many things, that we keep because we feel obliged to and yet, we never use them and we feel guilty about that and as time goes by we feel more and more guilt and we start trying to avoid those things.

But it is not only the things that make us feel bad about ourselves, that we need to let go. The things that we do not care about as well. If we have a shirt that we love and one that we feel “Meh” about, we will always reach for the one we love. So letting go is the right choice. Why though? Why let things go that we don’t care whether or not we have them? Because the more things we love we have around us, the more we can appreciate what we own. And the more things that are Meh and surround us, the more we feel Meh.

We do not need things that make us feel Meh. Because Meh is just another word for “kinda empty” and the latter is definitely an issue when it comes to dealing with tension and self-harm. That we do not need things that make us feel bad is obvious.

But what if I do not need 9 white T-Shirts, but I love every one of the ones I own? Do I have to toss them if I want to be a minimalist? Certainly not. It is not about having only a few things. It is about having only the things we really want to have. And this will contribute to our happiness. Minimalism should never be a source of guilt. Never. If we like pens and like to have hundreds of them in pretty containers and display them somewhere. Sure. We should do that. But we should always have a designated home for anything we own. Because that is the first step to expressing gratitude and if we cannot find a home for the item, how much do we really love it? We shall never just stuff things away, because chances are that we don’t need those things.

This way we will be happier with less possessions. Not because we value having only a few things. But because we value the things that we own. Because eliminating the things we do not like will give us the mental space to appreciate what we own. We can have a completely positive mindset towards our possessions, because we love everything we own. Everything brings us joy. And thinking about it… even if we discard half of what we own we still will be surrounded by so many things. So many things we love. And this means, we can go through life more positive. Which is exactly what we want.

The concept of having less and valuing it more can be applied to anything. It can be applied to every action. It is about being mindful. Doing one thing and giving it purpose rather than doing a hundred things but not caring for one of them. And not only will we be happier as an individual but also as a social being. Because if we meet a friend that’s all we do. Meet a friend. If we work we are more productive, because we are not doing five things at the same time. It will take pace and stress and pressure out of our daily lives and therefore leave us happier.

And again with caring for the few things we do more than for the hundreds of things we can be more grateful. With the few things we own we can be grateful for every single one of them. And eventually this fills us with peace. Having a few meaningful things in our lives, rather than just having stuff around us, that we don’t know what to think about.