“Don’t take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway”
Elbert Hubbard
Daily. Grind. Daily. Grind. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
We’re back. We’re slowly trying to get into a routine. It sucks. I’ve been on such an adrenaline high this year that this week I Google diagnosed myself with adrenal fatigue – sounds suitably serious, but apparently the jury’s out on whether it’s a real thing. Okay, so maybe I’m just on a good old-fashion come down, or anti-climax, after what’s been, let’s face it, a shitty screwed up roller-coaster of a year straight out of a sci-fi. I don’t even know how we are now in October?!
We moved to Paddington in Brisbane a month ago. After we assembled our new king bed (best purchase ever by the way) and tucked in the final corner of the linen sheets (second best purchase) I slumped into a dark dismal downer. My thoughts were bogged in a thick fog, I felt tired and heavy. In fact, heaviness is the best way to describe my state of being. Everything became an uphill slog. It’s hard to string a sentence together when the words seem coated in treacle. I tried getting into a routine – early morning gym classes, kindy drop-offs, house chores, dog walks – but it was a monumental effort that left me exhausted and, quite frankly, I was just going through the motions. I resorted to cutting down on alcohol, meditating daily, going gluten-free, switching to oat milk, deleting Facebook, reinstalling it again – all in a bid to lift this oppressive weight bearing down on me. All with minimal effect.
You may not know I’m a fully qualified Ayurvedic consultant. Pretty random huh? Go with me on this. So I studied Ayurveda full-time and now have a whole year’s worth of facts and wisdom about this ancient Indian philosophy in my head. The basic principles are: food is your medicine, you are what you eat, and the body and mind are inextricably linked. It’s the sister of Yoga – except instead of the mind it deals with the body (yes Yoga is in fact meant to be about the mind – the asanas (the poses) and meditation lead to enlightenment and liberation!).
So 5,000 years ago, instead of western allopathic medicine with all it’s modern scientific evidence and pharmaceutical pills, there was life knowledge (Ayur – Veda) passed down through the generations. Verbal revelations, from the gods, about medicinal herbs and regular practices for keeping the body youthful and dis-ease free.
If you were to summarise the practice as a daily ideal, depending on your constitution, it might look like the following:
- Wake with the sunrise, cleanse the body with a glass of warm water and fresh lemon
- Breath meditation and gentle Yoga poses
- Self-massage with herb infused oils
- Shower and toilet before breakfast
- Breakfast of oats, full-fat milk, dates and gentle spices (cinnamon, cardamon, turmeric)
- Avoid cold water which dampens the digestive fires
- Vegetarian diet – lunch of rice, vegetables and dhal
- Lighter dinner, of say lentil soup, no alcohol
- Early to bed – no distractions, no fun (kidding!)
There’s a lot of fire and water in my constitution, so on top of this I would avoid going out in the midday sun, and cut hot spices and acidic foods out of my diet. I may find I swell up or have inflammation if I don’t.
When we don’t do these things we can become out of balance, and toxicity will start to build up inside us. Eventually, our channels become blocked and we’ll feel heavy and foggy, in the sort of way that only a strong coffee and a hot shower can sort out.
It’s really not rocket-science. I think we all know what we should be doing. Though how much do we carry on doing, even when we know it’s actually bad for us?
Drinking alcohol when it makes us feel like crap the next day, eating too much salt, not taking enough time to relax, not reading that book we were recommended by a friend, not spending enough time with our favourite people and too much time with the energy-suckers, eating meat when it doesn’t quite sit right with our conscience, not meditating when we promised ourselves we would, not exercising regularly despite paying the gym membership, neglecting our creative pursuits, having a great business idea but never putting it into action.
How much do we set out to do or know we should be doing but we put it off or make excuses?
It’s a massively human trait – psychologists refer to it as cognitive dissonance, or the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. It pulls in lots of negative thought processes and behavioural patterns, such as avoidance, denial, self-neglect, procrastination, bargaining, excuses:
- “fish and chips tonight, but I’ll definitely eat better tomorrow”
- “if I had a little studio space I’d be doing my art every day”
- “I’ll only drink wine four nights a week”
- “I just need to upgrade my fitness gear and then I’ll start running again”
- “I don’t actually eat that much salt anyway”
- “I just don’t have time to read a book”
- … and on and on we go.
I say these sorts of things to myself all the time. It’s frustrating, it’s disheartening, it’s demotivating and it’s selling ourselves short. It’s the kind of self-talk that will leave us unsatisfied and full of regrets in later life. It also creates a rift between our authentic self and our lived state and unable to reach our full potential.
Congruence in psychology (coined by Carl Rogers) is a state of connecting your ideal self and your real self. The person you want to be with the person you really are, or perceive yourself to be. To put another way, in-congruence is when your feelings don’t align with your actions – you may be thinking something but the words that come out of your mouth don’t match your thoughts. For example, “sure, I’d love to check out your fossil collection” when in reality we’d rather sit in traffic (at least you can listen to a good podcast!).
We all have to do this to a certain extent to get by in every day life, but when it becomes our whole existence it can be draining and depressing.
“Am I living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me?”
Carl Rogers
Rogers came up with five key attributes of a fully functioning person who is well-adjusted, well-balanced and interesting to know:
1. Openness: expressing a full range of emotions, including negative, without the need for ego defense mechanisms.
2. Existential living: being present, in the moment and not dwelling on the past or being anxious about the future.
3. Trust: listening to your gut instincts and trusting your feelings and decisions.
4. Creativity: seeking new experiences, taking risks, embracing change and creative thinking.
5. Fulfillment: being happy and satisfied with life, and pushing ourselves.
None of these attributes sound heavy to me. You’d actually be a super-human floating on a cloud with a perma-smile on your face if you ticked all of these, all of the time. In all honesty, we’re probably all a little maladjusted, unbalanced and dull to be around on occasion. I believe we are either a) born happy, with natural resilience in abundance, and destined to be a high-achiever, or b) we have been raised in a nurturing healthy environment and given the right tools and encouragement to make something of ourselves, or c) we have worked hard to develop good habits and healthy routines that support us to get to where we want to be in life. The first two are just pot luck.
There’s some great theories out there on all of this, some truly inspiring creative people, courses you can sign up to on existential living, books on trust and openness, TEDx talks on the secret to fulfilment. For me though, when I look externally for a magic wand to fix me, I end up frustrated – having spent lots of money on another interesting “cure” that didn’t work. Often, we’re looking externally because it’s easier to remain passive and avoid being active participants in our life. Commitment, diligence, compassion, helping others, daily practice, routine, abstinence – these aren’t very sexy words, but the more years I’ve known myself the more these words resonate.
Life can get heavy. There’s loss, there’s suffering, there’s raw grief. Being human isn’t straight-forward – it’s often painful and fraught with challenges. We don’t always know what we want in life and at times we will become defensive, anxious, afraid, or dissatisfied.
This past month I think what I’ve really been searching for is a deep sense of belonging. A dear friend said I won’t quite fit in anywhere now – I’ll never feel like Australia is “home”, but I’ll no longer feel I belong in the UK either. But that’s the topic of a whole other post.
We ultimately want the same things – genuine connection, the ability to be our true selves, freedom of ex-pression and a release from de-pression.
I imagine we’re all striving to find a lightness of being, and some of us are having more success at this than others. It’s comforting to know that however you choose to live your life – whatever your background, your appearance, your education, your job, your bank balance, your views, your beliefs, your hobbies, your interests, your quirks, your love language, your Myers Briggs profile – we’re all in this together.
With love,
Joelle
the three free spirits. 