The Art of Living-excerpt from Chapter 4 of Surviving Depression, an Ecological Perspective
The Body Relaxes by Play, the Mind relaxes by Creativity, the Spirit relaxes by Laughter….
Why not make it the art of being, not the art of living. However, we at times need a road map to relearning ”Living” just to rebuild a life we lost. The art of living is just a way to ”being” again, as we were when we were children. being Zen, where just being is simple and practiced, and interpreted in many ways as an art form which some Asian countries have mastered; one only has to look at the way some Japanese people live and see that they have turned living into many art forms in which being is expressed. The benefits of learning this enable us to create a quality of life which allows room for beauty, aesthetics, self-nurturing and happiness, which can be lost in grief or trauma. In contrast to material wealth in life, which doesn’t allow room for living as the essence of being, content in just that. The modern western lifestyle may create a feeling of emptiness and stress instead of self-nurturing or having time to connect with nature and creativity.
While lifestyle management can be complicated for people with depression because we find it hard to find meaning and purpose, as we have lost our meaning and purpose. We lack the motivation to do anything, our living space becomes messy and dirty, and our outward way of living expresses a sense of defeat, having given up on life because we feel life has given up on us. Life events that lead us to this predicament of emotional stasis can be intense. We may have unresolved emotions and anger to deal with or have lost a spouse or lost too many people we loved in a short period of time, such as family or cherished friends, or we may have lost a job, our status, our home and so on.
Some people’s stories are very unusual, you are not alone in your loss, your story may be different but how you feel with your grief and sadness is similar to that of another’s loss and pain.
When one goes through deep trauma, it is lived in our daily memory, it is felt deep within our cells, which seem to vibrate with that deep trauma and loss. Some moments are replayed, as if we were reliving what happened just the day before. Then it is so hard to find one’s way back to joy and its easy to feel like we will never laugh again or experience fun or happy feelings, and we forget the ability to feel joy and cannot imagine we will ever feel love or such joy again, especially, when we are in raw grief or dealing with so much loss. Therefore, it is important to encourage ourselves by finding a new motivational incentive to help us create a healthier lifestyle. This is why the art of living or just being and flowing with it, is challenging but also rewarding, (especially, when the world doesn’t make sense).
It is a unique project for each individual, it gives you a goal, and means your job will be to create your own unique Art of Living or learning to just be again, like when you were a child, to nurture and bring back aesthetics, beauty, colours, music, dance and joy into your lifestyle, you may have cut it out for a long time, but you deserve to have these things. It means you can be creative and exercise a new way of seeing yourself in relation to the world, you are literally writing a new chapter for yourself but intentionally focusing on the things that used to bring you job before, revitalize those things, just because of your loss it doesn’t mean you won’t ever feel those sparks of joy again
Find your way back to the art of living so you can just be again, reclaim your humanity and feel that passion for life return.
Surviving Depression in a Depressing World, An Ecological Perspective https://www.amazon.com/Surviv…/dp/B084QKQLCV
Carlita’s environmental projects and writings can be followed at Evolve to Ecology
https://wordpress.com/post/evolvetoecology.org/660
Thank you and good health to you, health is wealth
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