How Do You THRIVE? Change in Place, Shift in Perspective
This fortnight in the @naturalmedicine Share Thoughts for Steem, we invited you to tell us What helps you THRIVE? - What are ways that you creatively support your mental health?
Here are the first week's amazing entries. You have until September 25th to make your entry! We'd love to hear it!
In weeks prior, I had initiated the #ihaveanxietytoo challenge and purely amazing experientially based posts had come out of that. Definitely check out that tag. The thing is, beyond destigmatizing anxiety and supporting one another in the harder, more uncomfortable times, it's also awesome to benefit from the sharing of hearing how we not only cope, but also how we thrive!
This leads to this fortnight's question...
As you might've seen from yesterday's post, Ini and I took a little trip over the past week. We went to the mountains, to a place that we both have loved. We joked it's like a romantic tryst, a lover you enjoy when they come through your town, not a long term relationship.
A lover you leave before you get tired of each other, but one that's made an impression on your soul....
Variation
When I was growing up, my mom would tell my sister and me how beneficial it was for the brain to take a different way home when possible. She said it helped the brain stay fresh and elastic. This variation is good for the brain, but also for the soul. Ruts are pathways that are often-trod and they don't only take pace in the outer realm, but also inside of us.
Variation and a change of habit and place is a way that I creatively support my mental health and help myself THRIVE!
Travel
Travel is a fantastic way to easily get out of a rut. Traveling literally wakes you up in new locales which freshen the spirit.
New people, places, sites, sounds... everything.
For me, this has always been the supremely easy choice when I'm freshening myself up inside.
I just love waking up in new places. In my 20s, I was constantly on the move and didn't stay anywhere for more than a few months. I loved this constant movement, seeing so many new things, learning and expanding myself and my horizons. Ultimately my dream was to homestead and that's where I am now, but the traveler inside didn't die!!
When in a new place, we see with fresh eyes. Perhaps the place we live is also a fantastic place with lots to offer, but it can just be helpful to get a change of scenery.
Perspective
One of the best things I can do for my mental health is to step back from my life to get a bigger picture perspective.
Stepping back from my life and taking a long range view brings a fresh breeze into my life and helps me see it in a new way.
The things which were consuming my mind take a back seat and everything isn't crowding my moments. The devil can be in the details, after all, and in these times it is so good to just take a big breath and look at the long range view.
I mean this literally and figuratively. Long range views are good for the soul.
Climbing to high places where the air is clearer, crisper, brighter does wonders for my mind. That's why I've always loved mountains. Yet if you can't get to a mountain, I find even getting to a place where you can see for a distance, perhaps watching a sunset, is a really good and clarifying activity.
We can get stuck in the bowls of our thinking and rotate on the same thoughts. Have you ever done that?
...Only to suddenly be gifted with a new way of perceiving something and then everything changes. Our minds and the way we think about things, our perception, creates our reality. It is life-giving to allow a change in perspective, perhaps letting go of something we previously were holding in a much more rigid or unchanging manner.
Like thinking about death, a big picture perspective helps us laugh at the things that were previously consuming or overwhelming us. We can put things in their place instead of being run by them. When we do this, we actually have more energy, then, to go back to our lives and address them. We can even thrive!
The author on her 32nd birthday in the mountains.
It was my birthday wish to spend this year's special day in the mountains fishing and gathering herbs. A success!
Do What You Love
Ini fishing at sunset
This summer I promised myself that I would get out and fish more and spend time on the rivers. Honestly, I didn't do this enough at all! I could feel the symptoms of burnout coming on: lack of motivation, being tired with the life I had chosen, wanting to get away, etc.
Now, as it is when we leave to go on a trip or vacation, the last moments can be purely hectic. In fact, for this latest trip, as we were about to leave Ini couldn't find his wallet. We searched for an hour only to find it on the dash in the truck! Oye!
As I was doing last minute packing (let's face it, I'm a last minute packer!), I kept looking at my fishing gear and feeling the intuitive nudge to bring it along. It was a part of my intention to fish on this trip, but in the final stages of packing I was feeling beyond overwhelmed and almost didn't bring it. Yet at the last minute I did!
My intuition, as usual, came through with the win on this one (and I will share another post on the details of the fishing!) Fishing was one of the greatest joys on this trip and Ini made a personal best of catching 2 fish in one day! I affirmed my love and enthusiasm for fly fishing and was able to learn new skills and hone others in the tiny mountain streams.
Getting Through the Obstacles
Yet do you ever do this: Not do the things you love because you're in a rut?
Or keep up with an unhealthy dissatisfying pattern just because it's habitual? I do! It doesn't have a rhyme or reason, but perhaps inertia is partially to play.
I can easily Identify the things I love (and am open to discovering new ones), but when I'm stuck in a pattern, I don't always do them. Perhaps I even know I'd be happier or thriving if I took steps towards balancing more and doing the things I love instead of working so much, yet that inertia is strong! Travel, as is looking at the bigger perspective, helps my mind make that spacious shift towards doing the things I love.
This trip was amazing for many reasons (expect more posts about this ;))! But one of the best reasons was the freshening of my whole person. A rut can lie to you and tell you it will be hard to get out of, but it can really be as easy as spontaneously taking a drive to a new place or even going back to one that you have previously loved. We always remind ourselves that it just feels difficult to get away, but really when the stuff is packed and ready to go and you've shored up the homestead, it is so easy to just go. And the benefits far outweigh any discomforts of organizing for a trip or other details.
Good post with some great suggestions. I upvoted and resteemed. I think every individual will have different thoughts on this. I agree with most everything you said for myself. I love fishing but yet another year went by without fishing. (kind of easy to do when you do not drive)I spend more time doing Qigong, meditation and enjoying the outdoors. It is so easy to get stuck inside especially at harvest time and one is busy canning, fermenting. Getting away is a great idea but can be expensive. Alone time to think, being aware of our thoughts so they are not always on the same thing or drifting to something you do not want your thoughts on is good practice for all of us. Thanks for sharing @mountainjewel.
thank you for the resteem and thoughtful comment. i agree each individual will have different thoughts - i hope they share them for the @naturalmedicine contest. it's so interesting to hear what people do/how they thrive! if you feel like writing a full post for it, i invite you to!
great points.
getting away can be expensive, but we cut costs down by camping out (freecampsites.net is the site we use while we're on the road) and also cooking most of your own meals. this type of vacation definitely didn't break the bank :)
Never too late. Think of Grandma Gatewood, who hiked the Appalacian Trail when she was retired.
https://steemit.com/emmagatewood/@johano/grandma-gatewood-hikes-the-appalachian-trail-avino-gatewood-mar-adas-la-apela-ian-vojon
Happy, Happy Birthday! Such spectacular views!
I really agree about the long range view and I am so glad you took this time for yourself.
thank you so much dear <3
I love this! You are so right about being stuck in a rut...something we all need to be conscious about. Sometimes it is laziness too. Having just returned from a trip myself, it does give you a new perspective, an appreciation especially when you get back home. You see things through new eyes and a clear mind ox ;)
exactly. that new perspective so often breeds appreciation and the ability to see "through new eyes" with a clear mind helps enjoy the life you've created a bit more! glad you and dad also got to go away for a bit too :) refreshing indeed! excited to visit you here shortly <3
I upvoted your post.
Mabuhay, keep steeming.
@Filipino
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Awesome post. A lot to grasp onto and apply.
Thank You
@mountainjewel
thank you! glad you found it helpful.
I feel what you're saying here @mountainjewel. I have a much better mental health state than I did say, 3 years ago but the only thing that brings back those old feelings is when I stay closeted in the flat for days on end with no change of scenery... ha ha, which is becoming a more regular occurrence with the amount of writing I'm doing at the moment. It is a balance for sure. I got out to another city last weekend for a little road trip and even that break away from the same environment improved my mood no end.
Those mountains look stunning btw's. :-)
hey raj! thanks for your thoughtful reply. definitely a balance. glad to hear you got out on a little road trip recently! i agree, it doesn't have to be a long or far away trip... just a shift in perspective/place.
Great post @mountainjewel We continually tell ourselves we can't get away...until we do. Then we realize its much more possible and much more rewarding than we think. We got in a short family trip and my wife spent a lot of time with her father this year. We would have said it was not possible. Now we are just grateful :)
exactly! grateful is a great place to be :) glad you all got to move around a bit.
This is really a fine post. I am curious to know how you will manage in future to cope with beeing on one place as homesteader and on the other hand the longing to travel around. Good luck. I know what you are talking about.
Beautiful.. nothing like a road trip to give that perspective. You both look so at peace. Great photos too!!! This is PERFECT for thriving mental health!! Hope readers here will write their own posts too.. there's steem to be had in them hills!!!
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exactly! i hope readers will chime in as well. it's so fascinating to hear how everyone does it! xoxo
funny you say that about the steem in the hills. oddly enough this last visit to this mountain range was the first time we learned that there was a gold rush in the late 1800s. somehow that passed by us until now. i was definitely keeping an eye out ;)
Yes I think we were having a gold rush at the same time. Fascinating source of stories and snippets into people's lives!
happy birthday beautiful, that is great you got to spend your day in the mountains. You are so right travelling really is important when it comes to supporting your mental health, once we are moving we are encouraging our thoughts to move and we are physically helping our bodies to create such positive energy.
Such a beautiful place you found xxx
thank you sweetheart.
said perfectly. it is so good to move around and experience ourselves and the world in new ways. thanks for your kind and thoughtful comment XO