Exhalation
Recently, I broke through. I don’t really know what happened… I just woke up empowered, alert, strong. I’ve felt this way before, but it’s been a few months, at least. Suddenly I had the strength to kick bad habits. the strength to resume meditation, the strength to write again (hello, by the way!), and with so much new fuel.
It’s not like I’ve been wasting away the last few months — far from it. Anybody would tell you I’ve been busy… Mostly with my startup, but I’ve also been studying, socializing, and working out. From the outside, it hardly looks like my life has even changed. But the change is profound, as if I’ve entered a new mode. The motions are the same, familiar, but the experience is different — aware, mindful, motivated.
And suddenly it feels like I have creative access to everything I’ve done in the last few months. I can write about it, reason about it, and build upon it. Like my heart opened up, or maybe my mind. I have new insight, and a newfound appreciation for sticking through the last few months, for continuing to go through the motions until I found myself again on the other side.
And now I wonder…can I hold onto this? Is this the new normal, can I make it so? Or will I “fall back” after this cycle is over. I want it to last forever; I suppose I’ve already developed some attachment to being this way.
As far as I can tell, here are the things that helped me recover my mental health, though truthfully, I’ve no idea if these are “causes” — they’re just positive things that happened around the time I woke up feeling great:
- Not fighting myself
- Watching Dune??
- Going to a party where I danced, played guitar, and sang with strangers
- Writing a wish on a floating lantern?
- -> [this is the point where I started feeling great, the rest just deepened the feeling]
- Reading Nicky Case’s mental health suggestions
- Meditating
- Writing
I’m not really sure what happened, but I’m glad it did. I feel prepared, empowered — like I can do it, whatever “it” is. I’m going to take this gift of strength, and use it as an opportunity to build great habits, and to drop bad ones. I’ll construct the sorts of habits that make it more likely to achieve & retain strong mental health in the future. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll keep up a solid writing habit again…
Until next time.
Breathe in lonely struggles
Breathe out new appreciations
Breathe in comfort and security
Breathe out strength and risk-taking
Breathe in fear, and doubt
Breathe out confidence, and power
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
