Keeping regular

Strangely this post is not about the current state of my colon as much as the title might lead you to believe. Rather it is about maintaining my consistency with the things that matter.

I have never been one for making New Year resolutions mainly because I am crap at sticking to them.  But when I have a passion that I care about I can usually see it through to a conclusion. With this in mind I made myself a promise at the weekend to scribble everyday. As you know I love to write and I have been an irregular blogger for a few years, in that time I have used my blog as a way to vent my feelings and write a conversation on my depression. But like so many things in my life I have not been consistent when it mattered, the results were erratic at best and I never really progressed with tackling my issues. Since I have started down the road to "calmness" I have seen the benefits of regular meditation and weight lifting on my mind. Now my goal is to write everyday, not just to help my head, but because I love to write and want to get better at it. Fortunately even when I write shit lines it helps to clear my brain and bring some great ideas to the forefront.

Having said that as I write this I have been watching a great film and it has sidetracked me somewhat from my goal! The film in question was Journey 2 The Mysterious Island, a veritable classic starring The Rock, Michael Caine and Luis Guzman amongst others, (hopefully you picked up the sarcasm there!) The reason I put the film on was to have some background noise on whilst I tapped out a few lines of this post. But instead I ended up watching the whole thing and being distracted from what I wanted to say. As a result it allowed my head a little rest from itself just watching crap (but good) TV and I relaxed. Sounds absurd to say this but sometimes I forget how to relax, my thinking can be that all consuming and draining that I don't know how to just switch off, sad really. But this well timed break meant that I not only wrote what I wanted above, but also found another way to switch the head off. In the battle against the Black Dog it's all about finding the tricks that work and using them one after the other.

Following on from this thought process (hang on Tom, stop thinking!) I wanted to bring up a conversation I had with a friend of mine recently. We both agreed that our generation (80's kid) has too much time to think. We have it so good because of our parents working hard and setting us up, modern technology making things easier and a thousand opportunities open for us to do whatever we want. But we are still unhappy, still we want something bigger, to be someone or do something important. Now I know this is a topic that can go on forever and I merely raise it to highlight my own flaws in regards to overthinking. But if we take stock and look at what we have rather than what we don't, try to live in the present moment and live a much simpler existence then contentment will follow. Not happiness, but contentment. Calmness will follow that.

Perhaps you don't want those last two things, that's fine. Perhaps you want happiness. I mean that is a cool goal. But happiness is just a feeling, it comes and goes and we can never hold onto it forever. We just have to enjoy it when it is there, much like we have to be present when we experience sadness or grief. Denying it only makes things worse, but allowing it means you can learn and move on. For me striving to be something great is the root of my depression and anxiety. Fuck. That is some serious realisation there. Truthfully the pain I cause myself from trying to be perfect is why I am writing this and what I need to do most often is not take myself and life so seriously and just enjoy the moment. That is not to say that we shouldn't aim for goals and work towards them. But is it really worth making yourself ill over? Is it worth the heartache, the decline into a different personality and the dark side of a depressive mind? No. That right there is why I meditate, lift weights and write. These simple things help me to realise that none of what we do really matters, we are insignificant. Nobody will care about us when we are dust (aside from family), we are not that amazing. Once you realise that you can let go of all the bullshit and just get on with being. Being your real self. Being chill. Being a human.

Anyway enough deep stuff. Don't think too hard on any of this, but feel free to check out this meditation book I use this Christmas. It is one of the best things I ever did.

Merry christmas to one all.

Tom

Clarity?

On my walk home from the chiropractor last night I had 30 minutes of the strangest feeling. Normally I don't get a full "episode", but rather snippets of the feature film. But for that 30 minute walk I had a calm like no other, a contentment and peace in myself that was unbroken by my mind. I was neither happy nor sad, but rather I was just being. I felt relaxed (possibly from chiro), but it was the sort of relaxed you feel when you are too tired to fight anymore, when your mind and body just chill the fuck out. Perhaps that was all it was, just fatigue from working long hours, being in the sun on a hot tin roof and having consumed four coffees (not all at once!) Whatever the cause was I don't care. If I knew the combination code that elicited that safe of feeling to be opened then I'd do anything to get it again. It was an amazing experience.

But that is just part of a bigger feeling I've had recently. For all my posts about falling off the wagon I have been making progress. I need to write that as much to tell myself as you, but I'm crawling forwards. Some days it's like dragging myself through treacle, with a head that won't compute the simplest tasks and feeling like I've been tranquillised. But little by little I have better days when work makes sense, I don't forget shit and I'm a positive person to be around. But it takes time I will tell you that for free. I am realising now how little I knew myself before and how different I am slowly becoming. It's not an outward change because I don't give a damn about that, rather it's inside that is changing and that's the juicy bit, quite literally. Somebody once said that I don't need to change, that I am great the way I am. But I am only great to those outside of my head, for all the people I meet will always get the friendly and supportive Tom. But that is not what I am trying to change. It's the evil shit inside that nobody sees that I'm working on.

On a different note I had a chat with a friend about positive motivational quotes the other day. I was annoyed by the emptiness of the words that are bandied about on Facebook posts everyday. I don't know why this gets my goat so much, after all these people are only trying to be positive. That is certainly better than the negativity everywhere. But perhaps it is because people don't really think about what they are saying or that the words have no real meaning. It could be because the words are empty when you don't act on them, learn from them. As I've said before you can't just talk a good game, you have to work at it every damn day.mI do my meditation regularly now and have started a regular stretch programme with Catherine. The gym is irregular but I'm not killing myself over it, when I stop doing physical 50 hour weeks then I'll get back into it! The key for me is to take action consistently if I want to see a change and not just moan about things or write about them.

I don't remember if there was a purpose to this post other than speaking of my "calm" experience. But if there's a point to make I guess it is this, don't give up. If you want change then act. Stop fucking complaining about shit and talking it over, thinking about it and throwing up barriers to your success, JUST DO IT. Yes for some things you'll need a plan, but you know what for most stuff you don't, just act. Learn from your mistakes because planning will only take you so far and won't prevent bad stuff happening. In fact you'll learn more if you experience the bad stuff, just look at me as a case in point, without Depression I wouldn't be making changes to myself in order to improve my life.

Mull on that for a bit, but make sure you act on it.

Tom