“SOMETIMES I SITS AND THINKS AND SOMETIMES I JUST SITS”

When all the world shouts to be heard, can you tolerate the sound of silence? In this frantic life, in a world that’s moving too fast, have we all forgotten how to just be, in other words  have we lost the art of doing nothing? 

Hadfield said” The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men” but when you are restless can you rest? 

To be able to calm the mind is a magical thing but the process has to start with being still, so if you are racing through an airport, clockwatching to make a meeting on time or working late to meet a deadline, that is not your time. When life is beginning to overtake you, when the body is tired but the mind is racing, and need has become necessity that is the time to step out of the race and regroup.

To simply do nothing is powerful medicine, separate yourself from the world for a little while and absorbed in stillness think back to a time when you lay in long scented grass and watched clouds slowly drift across the sky. A time when you had time to stand and stare at branches heavy with leaves blowing gently in the wind, and let the soothing symphony of movement, light and shade overcome you again.

Anatole France wrote  “Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one labour by taking up another” but memories are a potent medicine  if you stop and listen  carefully, whispers from a time long gone, can still calm you, over and over again.

Title is a quotation from Satchel Paige.

"IN A REAL DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL IT IS ALWAYS THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING".

Depression is a place we all visit from time to time. Some of us only go as far as the suburbs, stay awhile and find our way home. Others get drawn into the darker streets, and though vaguely familiar they present many dead ends and easily confuse.

It is a barren place which can be difficult to find your way out of, some of us live there, in a state of passive misery, where even contemplating the future can seem threatening.

A person who lives in this place never feels secure and safe, they exist in quiet despair, it is a silent place where no one shouts out in mental anguish, no breast beating or wailing can be heard.  Much more it is a place of quiet preoccupation and isolation.

It is hard to breathe here as the air feels heavy with a sense of failure, time has no purpose, and each hour passes slowly. 

T.S. Elliott wrote “Lying awake between midnight and dawn, calculating the future, trying to unweave, unwind, unravel, and piece together the past and the future, when the past is all deception, the future futureless”.

 Depression is easily triggered by feelings of inadequacy, of being unworthy, what is it we feel unworthy of? Self worth is not measured by achievement and the accumulation of wealth, these things don’t always bring happiness; success can be miserable. It is better to believe that situations can fail without anyone being a failure, acts can be unworthy but not necessarily the person committing the act.

We cannot always change life but we can strengthen how we respond to it, and how we see ourselves in that response. We can learn to value ourselves and reinforce the notion that if depression is a place, then there is always a way out, sometimes we may need the help of a guide to find it, but when walking away we don’t have to look back; we can look forward and know that we will be happy again. 

Title quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

WE ARE ALL SURVIVORS

"The rhythm of life is intricate but orderly, tenacious but fragile. To keep that in mind is to build the key to survival". 

Life has a rhythm as old as time, a natural undercurrent of ebb and flow. When events alter the normal rhythm of your life, the secret is to know when to swim against the tide and when to float with it and not to worry where it takes you.

Living through a bad situation can make us go a little crazy at times but to survive means learning to live with adversity and not let it overwhelm you, so in the words of Kozor,  “Pick battles that are big enough to matter, but small enough to win”, and even in the midst of battle, take time out to take stock, and assess your  progress.

Whatever you are going through you can be sure others have gone through it before you, suffering is universal and the form it takes is an oft repeated pattern in many lives. The reassurance you should carry into the fight is that others have fought this battle and survived, whatever form that survival has taken.

We can’t win every battle, some are just too big, but we can survive them, and sometimes survival is simply the acceptance that you can’t change the situation, Hypocrites said “To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy”.

It may be hard to believe, but everything has an end, nothing lasts forever, not even chaos, and simply having life means that you have to live, it is not enough merely to exist. So in case the tide turns again, you might like to try singing and dancing  like a crazy person for a while, until you feel the rhythm of your life again.

 “When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained”    Mark Twain

 opening quote from Shirley Hirfstedler

COME ON IN, THE LIVING IS EASY.

Living is an uncertain condition, and no amount of self examination will produce an accurate prognosis. We can be confident of only one thing in life, and that is, it will never come again.

Whether it is long or short, happy or sad, empty or fulfilled can be determined by so many things, most of which are out of our control. The only thing we can be sure of is that this life will end. The absolute certainty of this is the truth of all truths.

Agatha Christie wrote, “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable and racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing”.

Once you embrace this philosophy you can use it as a creed to live your life by, whenever adversity enters your life, and you are consumed with doubt, you will take strength from knowing that once this time has passed, life will be worth living again. You will know for certain that more good days are ahead of you, that looking back to this experience and feeling sad will not stop you looking forward to what your life still holds for you.

So shallow breathe for a while until it passes and soon you will feel the need to, take in great gulps of air, life affirming air that bubbles back up and makes you break into mindless laughter. When that happens you will know life is grand again.

"That it will never come again is what makes life sweet".  Emily Dickinson

DO WHAT YOU CAN,WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, WHERE YOU ARE

When you feel you have reached rock bottom and you can’t seem to find a foothold, what you want is not encouragement but some reassurance that you are not alone.

When you have tried everything and you cannot find the answer, you need to be given the hope that life will turn again, and that someone out there knows that for sure. To be reassured that just for now, it’s alright to wallow and you won’t be judged.

Mick Jagger said “It’s all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back”.

If staying where you are to rest and regroup for a while means giving up the fight, then give it up. Giving up is not always a sign of weakness, there is a strength in knowing when to let go, it takes courage to surrender what you know you are now, for a faint hope of what you want to become in the future.

There is a Chinese proverb that says if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. So veer in and out with the tide for a while, drift where the wind takes you, and seek reassurance from those who have been there before you, and found a way out.

This will yield no great battle plan, you will hear no rallying cries, but slowly you will learn that sometimes what saves us is not to strike out into the unknown but to follow in the well worn footsteps of those who have done this journey before, not every survivor is a hero.

“Dare to be imperfect and one day there will be a tug at your sleeve…….a soul mate”.     Robert Brault

Title is by Roosevelt