What has to happen?
In the sense of our life, what has to happen to make or create actions?
This is a great question.
When talking about our sanity and our best life, what has to happen for us to make this so?
When talking about happiness, what has to happen to make us happy?
Or wait, do we even know (or believe) if happiness is real?
Here’s some food for thought:
When we look at our daily life and we see the work ahead of us, where does our motivation come from? Better yet, what do we do on the days when motivation is low or steering us in a different direction?
I say this because there are times when it’s hard to get up.
I say this because there are days when I’ve said to myself, “I just can’t want to do it!” yet somehow, even through my toughest bouts, I still get up.
I still show up to this place where I write. I still put myself “out there” and find a way to create movement. Trust me, this is not always easy. Sometimes, I do this under protest yet I still do this because otherwise, I know the consequences.
However, there were times when this too much for me to consider. There were times when getting out of bed was more of a challenge. I wasn’t asleep. I wasn’t awake either; but more, I was in this semi-kind of state where I just laid there.
I’d look up at the ceiling in this absent, senseless, passionless stare. I believed I was locked in this bottomless void where I had no drive nor energy. I saw no reason. I had no hope. I say this now; however, I must have had something.
I must have had a glimmer of something within me because otherwise, I would have been gone. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have rebelled against myself to get up or to rally back against my sad-self, and find some way to create a better life. The fact that I’m still here and the fact that through this kind of internal adversity there must have a little spark because otherwise, I’d have gone out and been nothing else but a bleak memory.
I say this now and I say this clearly: Motivation is neither a positive or negative force; but instead, our motivation is like electricity. I say this in the sense that energy is simply energy and like electricity, our energy is in need of direction.
Motivation is a status. Equally, our mental health is also a status,
on or off.
For example, how many times have we said, “I don’t have the energy to get up?”
Well?
This was our status.
Maybe this seemed true. Maybe at the time, our thoughts betrayed us.
At times like this, maybe our life seemed bleak and charmless or maybe our current situation seemed hopeless.
Maybe life seemed pointless so our thinking turned inwards and then our thoughts multiplied in different sections of thought. Next, this created ideas and in succession, one thought became two, and two became four. Next, our energy took on the chemistry of our thinking. So, therefore, we didn’t have the energy to get out of bed . . .
Or maybe our energy was nurtured in a different direction.
What if we gave ourselves food for thought?
What if, instead of nurturing the motivation to crash or remain in bed; what would happen if we nurtured a more fulfilling picture?
I say this, knowing full and well, because at the times of my worst internal adversities, I lacked the belief that anything was possible.
But more, I nurtured the belief that my ability to overcome was impossible.
So, I sunk deeper.
I was once a part of a fellowship that always talked about finding your higher power. I was part of a group that promoted action to make meetings, to create service and charity, and to actively work, create, cause and do something all the time.
The point was to navigate away from old, disruptive and addictive behaviors. While I am no longer a follower of this particular program, I do support the process of movement.
I do promote action because action supports change.
I say this because there are times when our stillness can be almost deadly.
I say this with a full understanding that movement and exercise physiologically creates a change in the body.
I also say this as someone who had to personally educate myself on finding “a way” to get up and to “get going” because nothing else was working for me.
- Medication didn’t help
- Therapy was not helping
- My thinking was not helping me
- My belief system was betraying my best interests
- I was sad, depressed and heavy at heart
so . . . what could I do?
I had no drive to get up or to do anything because, in all honesty, I saw no reason. I saw no benefit and felt no rewards – so, I stayed as I was because at least this was familiar to me.
Not to mention the fact that all I did was carry out motions. I was more like a shell than anything else. Was this crazy? Was I crazy?
In short, my answer is I’m more crazy now that I have the desire to live. I’m not sure why the word “crazy” has such a bad rap.
I’m more alive now than ever before. At the same time, I can still feel my challenges. I can still feel my bouts and I still have moments when my chemistry works against me.
However, the fact that I am here and that I have found a way to replace thought with action; the fact that I have you and whether you are real or whether you are listening to me; the fact that I wake up every morning and that I have dedicated myself to this report, each day, is more than life saving because internally, this is heroic.
I agree with the idea that says you have to save your own life on a daily basis.
Say this to yourself and allow your ears to hear your internal narrator.
You have to save your own life on a daily basis.
I agree that motivation is simply an energy in need of direction; whereas, at my worst and when I swore I couldn’t get up or get out of bed, I made the choice to nurture this sense of emotion.
However, when I chose to nurture this from a different angle, I allowed myself the permission to defy these consequences and, thus, I got up. I got dressed, no matter how bad things might have seemed or I might have felt and then I allowed myself the right to move.
This was life changing.
We talked about our connections with shame at the beginning of this journal. We talked about the different stations in the school’s cafeteria and the ideas of how and where we fit in.
We talked about the five fingers of rejective thinking to create an understanding on how our thoughts can lead us in unfavorable directions.
We talked about understanding our purpose and finding the secret of our endurance.
This way, we can restore our passion and find some way to visualize a picture so that we can create and design the figures of our best life.
My writing is my way of designing my best life. However, your answer might be different. Your equation is not the same as mine. So then the question becomes what has to happen for you to defy your internal adversity?
What actions can you create that will counteract unhelpful or problematic thinking?
In your case and you with your life, what changes would you like to see within yourself?
Me:
I want to change my interaction with the world.
I want to advance and improve my dreams to create and build and move further away from my old narratives and intimidations.
I want to create an action that will support my new hopes or like I’ve mentioned earlier in this journal and taken from a sci-fi perspective, I want to nurture whatever it takes to make my jump to “lightspeed” possible.
In answer to the question: What has to happen?
The answer is action.
And that’s what I work on
(every day).
The Written Addiction 