Part Three: Mental Action, Psychological & Spiritual Healing

I'm incredibly happy that I've finally opted to live a life so simply that I can be of use to others in their times of need. It's a fitting next (present) step in my life after both very good and very bad experiences. Living through hard things kept my words from sounding like careless & clueless garbage when asked for my advice, and I've gotten to see those words help in appropriate situations. I thank the heavens and even those who've brought suffering to my early life for this wisdom. There is no feeling better than that moment when someone in the midst of a terrible trial finally relaxes and you can see it- and you were able to put forth something helpful & decent that got them there. I don't like to see anyone miserable. Our world and our society would run a little more smoothly if there weren't so many people drowning in miserable circumstances. It's a snowball effect, and it touches every one of us.

This is my third post about how I've managed to heal my own mind and body, and have kept from going crazy. It deals with mentality. I had the fortune of talking with a woman this morning over coffee and a computer, and listening to her difficult life situation. It reminded me of my own past efforts to gain control over my life again and put myself back on track. I value these moments; they keep me from forgetting the things I've learned as I've grown older. Those things are vital. I don't believe any of those hardships were useless in the grand scheme of my time here.

Our minds have a way of doing some weird things when we are forced to cope with certain problems. Everyone's different, but it all sort of comes back to the brain producing those feel good chemicals when we want it to. Some of us are capable of putting up with a lot more than others, and some are going to hold on desperately to any form of coping mechanism they can to feel a temporary relief from misery. This faster method usually results in addiction or some other volatile behavior. This doesn't mean these people are weak or unintelligent. It means we don't all live the same lives or work the same way.

I came to figure out real quick that my brain liked patterns and repetition. I knew this without reading about it. I realized it felt good to sit wrapped in a blanket in the dark, rocking myself back and forth in an attempt to recapture some sort of silent, parental lullaby to ease my sorrows. I was in my early twenties. Before that, I used adrenaline rushes. And before that? Avoidance. As a child, I let fear engulf me so hard I learned to avoid and become antisocial. It took decades for me to trick my brain into using healthier and longer lasting methods of healing. The first thing I had to overcome was mental laziness.

When we're depressed, it's debilitating. All I wanted to do was hide under a rock. I didn't even want to eat or bathe. I'd become disgusting and stop caring about my surroundings. Addictions aren't limited to drugs. We can be addicted to depression. We can become addicted to obsession over other people, certain foods, sexual attention, and especially adrenaline rushes. Some become addicted to staying so busy they end up looking like walking, anorexic death without the cocaine. It's not easy to figure out balance in a life that involves so much stuff to deal with that we're too distracted to make clear decisions anymore. One of the best tricks I've figured out in that regard is to learn to prioritize.

If I can break down, with a pencil and a piece of paper, everything I believe I'm responsible for, I can look at that list and prioritize. I can realize what I'm too distracted to realize when I'm in “go mode”. I can take a minute to figure out how to proceed without killing myself. And sometimes, it involves a bigger change than I want to admit. For example, I lived in New York for five years, because I moved there to be with a significant other. I based everything in my life around him and his goals and needs, and stopped paying attention to mine. I had a bad habit of letting myself disappear behind someone else I loved. That was the wrong thing to do, and eventually tore a rift in both our lives. No matter how unselfish it looks on the surface, revolving yourself around someone else will eventually be the most destructive thing you can do for both parties.

We can't own other people's goals and problems. We can help, but we don't have to allow ourselves to take full responsibility for them. And that's the biggest screw up most of us face. It's hard to let someone else own their own issues when you love them. It's hard to keep from disappearing. I got so bad I began to believe that what I said and thought wasn't fit to share or show. This was my own fear, born out of a bigger need to nurture someone else's life more than my own. It eventually came down to the fact that fixing everything for someone else made them weaker and incapable, and it made me so worn down I couldn't function normally. It came down to silently and slowly destroying relationships, due to dishonest living. And by dishonest living... an example:

Going through the motions in a romantic relationship whenever you don't really feel those motions is always going to result in tension. It's going to kill intimacy. Once that intimacy is gone, there's no going back to the way things used to be. The love changes. Usually, for the worst. While most women will love on a deeper level over time and through stress, and won't cheat on their husbands or boyfriends, they'll stop being intimate. Because allowing yourself to disappear into another person's goals will end up destroying your libido. It's hard enough to keep that fire going after many decades. Compound that with becoming silent about your own beliefs and life experiences, and revolving yourself around someone else. Compound that with pretending to be in the mood when you're not. Compound that further with feeling you're responsible for fixing everyone's problems and not letting those grown people own their own issues. This is a recipe for an apathetic marriage- it may function, but only in a business-like manner, serving only status and financial goals and putting kids through college. I couldn't go on ignoring my own feelings and goals in pursuit of only another person's happiness. (And I had no kids to think of. Remember though, kids eventually grow up, too.) I was in the mind set of feeling like anything I wanted or believed in was selfish, and out of a sense of guilt, I threw away my own desires. It eventually turned me into stone. I lost my sensuality over time, and it took me a while to find it again. It even took time to be comfortable in my own femininity again.

If we don't believe our partners can pick up on our pretense, we're mistaken. Even if the logistics aren't clear, our partners always know something's amiss. And it eats away at the relationship altogether. After enough time, we completely lose. We could acquire every imaginable comfort and status, but something sad happened to our love along the way. All out of that belief that we're selfish for having any personal desires or dreams at all that need attending to. I had to learn to prioritize, or I would have died in a lonely situation. Lonely not out of a body not being around; I always had that. No, my loneliness came from something deeper. Allowing my own sense of learned guilt make me a dishonest person. It was a hard lesson to learn, and I had to be proactive about stopping it from happening. I had to change my behavior and my thinking. And I had to learn my sense of guilt was over the top and unhealthy.

Re-wiring my own thinking and behavioral patterns was uncomfortable. It felt wrong, weird, and awkward. Logically, I could see the way it would help all my relationships and everything about my life. But on the side of being addicted to patterns and habits, it felt bad. My brain was used to certain things, and to cut them out and start over again felt impossible. The serotonin was off. But that's what we sometimes need to do. Buck up and feel awkward. Throw ourselves into the fire, deal with the chaos that comes from changing our habits and starting over, and let others get used to our new behaviors. It's not the end of the world. We might lose some friendships that weren't ever healthy friendships, and we might end up finding out we don't have as much in common with people in our lives we previously thought. It's scary as hell. It's just like waking up after being on drugs for years. An addiction is an addiction, whether its from opiates or an unhealthy habit of some other kind. But did I want to live my life in pretense for the sake of others, or did I want to be brave, step out into the light for once, and possibly live a much happier and healthier life? Because I knew I couldn't truly and honestly helpful to others if I remained overextended and unhappy. This realization came from my own core, spiritual feelings and connection to the soul. I felt connected to something bigger than myself, and I decided let go and let it take me. I started to once again believe in and trust that very personal connection, and to stop being afraid of the responses I'd possibly get as a consequence of sticking with my own gut this time. 

So I removed myself from it all and started over again. I lost friendships. I lost love. I took it to a literal degree, and I began to build my entire life over. I took to the wilderness, started living in a tent, and built a cabin before winter. I stopped staring at my computer at night and started reading books I could hold in my hands. I got in touch with candlelight before I acquired electricity. I opted to go extreme, because I needed a new focus. Hands on building to match my state of mind gave my head a way to more easily begin and understand and build itself up. This was my healing. Mine. I know not everyone can do what I did to heal themselves, as I mentioned before. We all cope differently, live different lives, and have different priorities. But the commonality is the fact that we can do something. Something else; anything else. We do have the power to change behaviors, mentality and our thinking. And that always transcends into action and a new perspective on life.