I repeat myself a lot. But the topic, as client requests show, is a pressing one. I notice that people love their life when they fill it with their favorite content: interesting activities and pleasant company. It's that simple. If you don't complicate things. But they complicate life and do not understand banal patterns when they lose contact with their desires. A person does not feel what he wants, loads himself with what is unwanted - and naturally suffers.
Desires are the vital energy of a person, his “food and air.” A person finds the clear meaning of life in the fulfillment of desires. And by suppressing desires, a person becomes alienated from himself and fades - the most well-worn path to depression. They follow it using two methods - idealization and fear. I will talk about this further.
Escape and freedom
Desires give two possible directions. They strive either for freedom or for security. These directions usually lead in opposite directions. In the direction of freedom we come face to face with fear. In the direction of security, freedom is lost.
The desire for freedom encourages oneself to reveal and manifest so that the voice of the soul can be heard. In practice, a person simply does what he loves, expresses his uniqueness, at the risk of being judged.
The desire for safety encourages oneself to close and protect, so that the soul is not at risk of being injured. Her voice fades to barely audible, and her personality becomes withdrawn and ceases to feel that in this life she loves - it is too dangerous - to follow the call of her heart. In practice, a person does whatever he wants, just not to take risks. He tries to be an inconspicuous “nobody”, blends in with his surroundings so as not to be subject to possible condemnation.
Only the expression of personal potential allows you to love your life. That is, passing through the barriers of fear is an obligatory challenge on the path of spiritual growth and a joyful life. Suffering is reduced when a person overcomes fears and receives his food - fresh impressions.
Imagine that you have no fear at all. What would you do? Give this fantasy at least a minute.
You can simply approach a stranger from the crowd that you like, and at the risk of seeming crazy, still get acquainted. You get the drive from life not within tired four walls, but in unpredictable spontaneity.
Non-existent indestructible barriers
The main pitfall of striving for security is a trick of the mind when one’s own fears are mistaken for the ultimate impenetrable walls of existence.
From childhood, everyone feels that the boundaries of the familiar are not the end of the world, they hide a world of endless possibilities. But if you don’t dare to follow them, fear becomes a constant background. So unpleasant that consciousness displaces the experience into the latent. You lose your understanding of what exactly you are afraid of - but you only feel how an invisible force with a stranglehold is daring you away from the limits of everyday life. And then they confuse their limited, empty life with global reality. As if everything in general is “decay and vain existence.”
In the articles I have already said that the mind always reaches out to the most comfortable conditions for itself, and from this perspective, every personal movement is the fulfillment of a current desire. Another thing is that a clear awareness of the desired scenarios of a happy life can disappear completely when the desire to hide in safety prevails.
For example, a person goes to a job he doesn’t like, seemingly “forcedly, not of his own free will,” but does it for specific reasons - money, approval, comfort zone - these “sacrifices” are his current secondary benefit, which has overpowered the voice of the soul.
Neurotic compulsion is a reluctance to admit that the desire to hide from fear turned out to be stronger than the desire for freedom.
They don't judge others
The situation with the pandemic and quarantine has led us to more often criticize and condemn others - individuals, our own government and entire countries.
For non-compliance with the mask regime, for insufficient measures, for putting our health and lives at such risk. Happy people also have their own point of view, beliefs - simply, while defending them, they do not attack anyone. As American writer Wayne Dyer said, when we judge others, it says nothing about them, but it defines who we are. Those who are happy are able to sympathize with others, enter into their situation, reserving criticism for themselves.
Stereotypes
Another popular way to not love life, tightly shutting up the voice of the soul, is the fear of being an abnormal black sheep and the subsequent stereotypical existence. For example, when a creative streak dominates in your soul, but stereotypes require you to become an office worker, start a family and take out a mortgage. The example is trivial, but it reflects national trends.
Stereotypes, in their voracious demands, are similar to ideals, but they manipulate not so much the transcendental carrot of success as the whip of guilt and humiliation for disobeying their dictates. Stereotypes can be given their due - they encourage one to achieve relatively realistic goals, in the spirit: build a cottage, plant a bonsai, conceive heirs, so that through them you can “continue” - if you didn’t do it yourself - make way for your descendants.
One of my friends, emphasizing his desire for freedom, more than once offered his interlocutors a small visualization. If you believe in rebirth, imagine that you have been building houses and raising children cyclically for a hundred lives. Introduced?
And the majority really need all this for self-satisfaction - either nature still resonates with the standards of society, or it has been thoroughly sold to it - and does not know any other comfort. Layers of personality given to feed stereotypes can drown out the voice of the soul to a barely perceptible sadness about something that has not come true.
How to learn to enjoy life: tips and exercises
You can get pleasure from a variety of things. Think for yourself what you like, what you would like.
Tip 1.
Stop worrying and start living.
Disconnect from disturbing thoughts about the future and stay in the present moment. Just surrender to your emotions, without including judgment.
- Exercise 1. Take five-minute breaks at work to just look out the window. Pay attention to the color of the sky, whether there are passers-by on the pavement, whether they are walking quickly or slowly.
- Exercise 2. Pay attention to what you eat. Try to enjoy your food. Hot soup? Salty? Spicy? Fried meat?
- Exercise 3. Find 15-20 minutes a day for conscious breathing. Breathe and count, say, to 4 as you inhale and to 6 as you exhale. Watch how your stomach rises and falls at this time. Don't think about anything other than breathing. If you find the exercise difficult at first, try apps that help beginners understand the process of mindful meditation.
Idealization
The other extreme and a way to not love your life is idealization - its hypostases: love, fanaticism and deification. In this vein, they fall in love not with people, but with their fantasies about an ideal life. Therefore, they exalt by idealization not only lovers, but in general every supposed harbinger of future happiness - for example, teachers and preachers who advertise those tempting heights with which the mind is selflessly enchanted.
It would seem that everything is wonderful, but this is the real, strongest desire - to follow your ideal path and get the happiness you are looking for. And at first, the idealist is truly, as if on the eve of sparkling success, overwhelmed with joy. In contrast to yesterday's life and familiar surroundings, he may feel chosen, honored with a lucky star.
But idealization is fraught with a catch that quickly spoils everything. It encourages you to cling with all your might to the non-existent, to mistake dreams divorced from life for an impending reality - another false projection. The idealist initially rejoices not at present events and people, but at how the present “should” unfold into future triumph. The idealist has not yet “jumped over”, but has already shouted “gop” at the top of his lungs a thousand times. In your imagination.
A clear example is sectarianism, where adherents who believe in rapid success are drawn into the abyss of hopes for spiritual laurels. Followers of financial pyramids similarly expect rapid growth, inclusion in the elite, and an endless stream of big and easy profits. And most often they punish themselves with idealization in relationships, when they attribute their only possible happiness to the reciprocity of their beloved.
Happiness of being
Social media users of all ages write about the simple joys of everyday existence. They glorify the kindness of people, the beauty of nature, and family relationships. Moments of sadness are replaced by the understanding that there is more good than bad.
- Every day of life is a small miracle.
- Never stop dreaming. One day you will wake up and realize that your dreams have come true.
- From small joys you manage to put together quite decent happiness.
- Love yourself. No one else will do this for you. In any case, there are very few such people.
- Time is running out mercilessly.
- Life is not in vain given only once. Try to do everything that needs to be done. Otherwise it will be lived in vain. Or you didn't love her enough.
- Don't deny yourself small pleasures. One day you will look back and realize that you have lost great happiness.
- True joy comes only after severe melancholy.
- Miracles happen every day. You just have to learn to notice them.
- Remember the moments when you are happy. Time is counting down.
- Even the smallest pleasure remains pleasure.
- A person learns to love life with age. As a child, he knows how to get joy from every minute of his life. But later he forgets that ordinary existence is life.
- Appreciate nature. She is the basis of everything.
- We should experience every moment as if we will not exist tomorrow.
- Only old people, children and animals know how to truly rejoice.
- Look around: how beautiful the world is!
- No matter how you look at it, life is good.
- Never put anything off. Nobody knows when it will end.
- Love for nature creates genuine love for one's being.
- You don't feel happiness when you scream for joy. You feel happiness when you walk quietly through the autumn forest, smile back at a child or pet a dog.
- Dreams are the icing on the cake of life.
- Nature gives joy in forests, in paintings and in poetry.
- A king or a beggar is given life once.
The whims of lovers
When the lover confesses his love in return, the lover believes that he has been handed a ticket to guaranteed happiness, and his hopes flare up with triple strength. In fact, with his confession, a lover can express a fleeting impulse of passion that does not imply any promises. Therefore, rushing ahead with the enthusiastic construction of castles in the air of illusory love only guarantees an escape from reality and subsequent bitter disappointment.
If disappointment is unbearable, the soul finds a way out in a new, intensified separation from reality, and layers a compacted layer of illusions until the unconsciousness of madness.
It is not easy for a growing soul to admit that she has no real power over life and people. There is only an eternal claim to an ideal life. Suspended grievances are a capricious refusal to acknowledge the groundlessness of one’s requests.
Inflation of love
The main pitfall of idealization is discounting all past meanings in favor of one decisive one. The idealist “sends to hell” everything that previously pleased him, as if announcing to the world that he no longer needs it. Alienated from all past meanings, he throws all his eggs into one non-existent basket - that is, into nowhere. And when the loss is discovered, a gaping hole is formed in the soul.
With the beginning of idealization, everything that nourished the soul is devalued, interests are erased. And after the intoxication of false happiness, a depressive hangover begins. Life in general begins to seem empty and meaningless.
In words, self-deception seems clearly obvious. In fact, everyone deceives themselves this way. It is the nature of the mind to push aside the real in favor of hoping for the best.
To idealize means not to love your real life, but to put an end to it and despise it, so that it becomes a forgotten step to the feet of a fake deity with exorbitant demands.
They are seduced by ideals simply because they like to amuse themselves with hope. And the more fabulous the hope, the more love its plot evokes. Probably everyone, deep down in their souls, irrationally feels special - and therefore worthy of metaphysical grace.
How to love people
It is impossible to love life if you don't love people. When your neighbors annoy you, your boss pesters you, or your friends betray you, life seems terrible. But it’s worth reconsidering your attitude towards others, and you will immediately feel better.
- Look for something positive in people. You can even write down all the person’s virtues so that you always remember them. Sergey is an excellent conversationalist. Maria is a wonderful cook and knows how to receive guests. Even if you don’t like a person at all, there is a lot of good in him and you can find common ground with him.
- Express positive feelings. Do you want to receive? Then give it away. The more you give, the more you will receive. Hug people whenever possible, do it from the heart. This will make it easier for you to establish contact with them. In this way, you can not only find harmony and joy, but also increase your own self-esteem.
- Smile when meeting strangers. To begin with, try smiling at people in the elevator or in the next courtyard, instead of sullenly immersing yourself in your own thoughts. You may be considered strange, but chances are you will get a smile in return. This means that you were able to melt the ice and bring joy to the person.
- Help without thinking whether they will answer you in kind. Volunteer when possible. Help an elderly neighbor get to the clinic, or invite distant, poor relatives to dinner. The main thing is that you feel satisfied with what you do.
Falling high
On spiritual routes, both escaping into the safety of the comfort zone and fanatical idealization are practiced. Escape from a frightening world is presented as a godly hermitage designed to strangle the personality, cutting it off from what it desires, so that consciousness is thrown beyond the personal into the deep layers of perception.
Careless seekers christen social paths as mouse fuss and try to break their personality, tied to society, in order to thus gain rewarded enlightenment.
Nowadays, the ancient meaning of enlightenment has long been lost, and the concept has simply become a fashionable trend to indicate its significance. An adequate person will try on this title only out of strategic necessity, realizing how contradictory it is met - with mistrust, alternating with blind idealization.
Fanatical seekers, as usual, receive not enlightenment, but lifelong depression, and in advanced cases, a complete separation from reality. A madhouse is not a place, but a state of mind.
A depressed personality, deprived of external nourishment, withdraws into itself, becomes painfully exhausted and fades. Its fragmented remains continue to peer into what they desire, but find there a hopeless, frightening emptiness.
Sometimes such self-suffocation actually forces one to search for new resources, and the person begins to draw from himself - first he burns out himself, then he switches to the resources of the unconscious. If alienation from oneself has not crossed critical boundaries, the seeker can reassemble himself, crystallize a new layer of personality that resonates with the real.
Therefore, as always, everything is good in moderation. A person must receive his own “food”, his own meanings. Otherwise, by immoderately withdrawing into oneself, one loses awareness and falls into despondency.
Buddhahood is not just an unattainable ideal. Just like championship titles in sports. They are reached. Units. But for the average person, belief in one’s chosenness is almost always idealization—a psychological drug. Even the image of a humble saint can become another “silicone” fetish for the amusement of pride. And the contrast with the ideal will poison the soul with guilt and fear of deprivation of the only meaning that is not devalued.
This is dislike for oneself, rejection of oneself, and attached to them is dislike for life. So-so people are forbidden to be mere mortals.
Admitting your own mistakes is the most difficult thing. Otherwise, everyone would have become enlightened long ago. But the psyche knows only one way to recovery - and this is the transformation of unrealistic beliefs into the acceptance of the ultimate truth of this single period of time here and now.
How to regain your zest for life
We got bogged down in everyday routine and problems, so we stopped feeling the zest for life. Isn't it time to reconsider your positions?
- Start thinking positively. Down with failures and problems! If you don’t have an algorithm for failures and misfortunes in your mind, then they will literally follow you on your heels. You will begin to perceive any event pessimistically. And if serious problems begin, then there is a chance of falling into depression. Therefore, from the thought “everything is bad with me,” move on to “everything is fine with me,” “problems can be solved.”
Start to see life not as a burden, but as a gift. Finally, forget about the Internet. Go with friends to cafes and cinemas, visit gyms, just take a walk down the street, even if it’s raining. Try to communicate more with those who are near and dear to you. Evenings and weekends watching TV is a direct path to depression and loneliness.
If you think positively, you will begin to perceive even failures not as defeats, but as life experience and a step towards success.
- Learn to love yourself. Life is wonderful. You must feel this if you love yourself. Try to do what you like. Minimize communication with unpleasant people, find a more interesting and well-paid job. If you don’t like your appearance, get a new hairstyle, buy a stunning outfit. And in general, appearance is not the main thing. The main thing is self-love and self-confidence. Here's a simple example. Paul McCartney's second wife Heather Mills was missing a leg. But after the amputation, she not only did not fall into depression, but arranged for herself another PR campaign. She created events herself, overcoming obstacles. It would be nice for you to increase your self-esteem and direct your life in the direction you want.
- Enjoy every day. Learn to admire the most ordinary things: good weather, leaves falling from trees, a paper boat that children are running after. Every day is unique, remember this!
