I’ve sometimes had a suspicion that part of the reason I struggle with living my life to the full is because I have a fairly pronounced fear of death. I’ve assumed this came about as a result of losing a brother and my dad in sudden and unexpected circumstances. In fact, it was suggested recently, that I might benefit from therapy around this issue but I resist that idea. My idea of therapy is old school, i.e. the disease model, which basically says that there is something wrong with me that needs to be fixed. I’ve had enough of this fixing over the years and, nowadays, prefer to see myself as someone already whole. A little lost maybe but not someone in need of fixing. So, I was interested to see this quote:

“When you say you fear death, you are really saying that you fear you have not lived your true life. This fear cloaks the world in silent suffering.” by David Viscott.

Profound stuff!

There is definately an element within me that fears I am not living my “true life” and the fact that the world might suffer as a result spurs me on to find what I need to be doing next. The quote came from a free chapter of the book “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself” by Steve Chandler and he suggests that in order to find out what your “true life” could be, you need to look for clues in whatever makes you happy . And if, like me you’re not sure what makes you happy you have to keep asking yourself the question – “What makes me happy?” and keep asking it until you know.

This is important he says, because “In the answer to that question, you’ll discover where you can be of most service. You can’t live your true life if you’re not serving people, and you can’t serve people very well if you are not excited about what you’re doing.”

So I’m going to create a new page and keep it updated as I learn more about the things that make me happy. I’m also going to check out more of Steve Chandler’s stuff

It was beautiful weather here in the UK, over the weekend, but I spent most of it in bed. Not sure why really except I felt like s**t and I just couldn’t make myself get up.

Sometimes, when the black cloud lifts, it feels like the cause was primarily hormonal, or bio-chemical because one day I suddenly don’t feel so bad. It’s not that I leap out of bed or anything but I wake without this heavy weight hanging over me. I woke like that this morning and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. But something else was different about yesterday compared with the weekend – I did some work. I took some action and achieved something. Maybe that’s the key, taking action, rather than it simply being a case of  ”bad” chemicals.

But in order to take action you have to get out of bed and I still haven’t cracked that yet, if I’m feeling crap.  So, I need more strategies to get myself out of bed before the heavy feelings take a hold and I need to put those strategies in place when I’m feeling good. Will need to work on this.

In the meantime I came across this video today. Although it’s aimed at entrepeneurs it spoke to me of life in general. I think the question that’s unspoken at the beginning is “What do you find hard about being an entrepeneur?” Given that sometimes I struggle to even get out of bed it’s easy for me to change the question to “What do you find hard about living?” And Matt’s answers make wonderful sense to me. And, it’s such a relief to know that even someone as successful as he, finds it hard to keep going sometimes.

I love the thought that the idea you start with is not necessarily “It” but that by keeping going it will lead you to what you’re looking for. In a way that’s what I’m trying to do by writing this blog. I’m hoping that by following the process of daily life I will find something better I want to do. But, first, I have to get out of bed!