-01.10.2021-
Today is the first day I feel my depression again. I have been here in Norway for exactly two weeks. I had been feeling a bit tired the past couple of days, but that could have also been due to the dreary weather. It has been raining and fairly cold for a week; I have seen the sun once.
On Tuesday I landed in Dreamvalley, a place I visited last year too, and was excited to come back to as there have been some big changes here. I feel like this is the place I should be in right now. The weather, my injury, the timing – everything led me here. I have had some interesting conservations and observation in the past few days, but also activated some old thinking and feeling patterns through the contact and exchange with others. I had feelings of inadequacy, feeling worth less than others, guilty for not having any official achievements in the conventional context, knowing less, being less alive and less resilient.
However, I also know that I shouldn’t take these feelings too seriously. My way does not need to match anyone else’s but my own. Perhaps this acceptance is what I should learn from these what feel like “setbacks”. It is difficult to switch from believing every word and every feeling my “demon brain” throws at me to realising that these situations can be very temporary and are there to help me realise a valuable lesson. The key is to stay in an observing state rather than to let yourself be swept into the waves. I have not mastered that yet.
I have been wondering about the purpose of life. Why are we alive? What is the goal? What makes life worth living? Be it someone in the routine of school, work, retirement, death or someone who chooses to live a life more connected to nature and themselves. What about horses who spend their whole lives walking around and eating? Or cats who sleep more than half of the day?
I have been wondering about the necessity of ordinary things, especially in relation to time.
Does one have to go to university right after school? When is it too late to “start” the life? What does that even mean and what qualifies as the start of the life?
These thoughts are most likely very dumb to be hung up on. There is no scale to say this has more worth than the other. Every day, every minute – no matter how it’s spent – is valuable and doesn’t need to be justified or measured. A person is not worth more because they have studied something and a person is not worth less if they have “wasted” some years of their life and fought mental illness.
I am a little upset and confused at these thoughts. They have in no way been caused or are to be blamed on my conversation partners, but rather stem from my insecurities, demons and old patterns that want to drag me down into the hole.
The realisation that THIS can happen while in “magical Norway” and while way from known and daily environments. I am glad that I had this realisation before I came here this time. Wanting to overcome this was one of the reasons to come here and one of the challenges I set myself. Funnily, it is still harder than expected now that I am here. Even if we think we are prepared, we will still romanticise our imaginations. Our brain cannot recreate pain on the same scale as our body feels it in the moment.
What I have learned: Patterns follow, actions don’t have to. I can choose how to deal with this new every time.
What I’m grateful for: Challenges to grow and learn. My observation mindset. To always be in the right place at the right time.