WRITING

Frozen? Come On! Nothing Is Impossible!

You can change your life, even if it seems out of reach. Here’s how.

1. Slow down, sit, feel, think 2. Talk with the ones near you 3. Always speak the truth 4. Exercise! Walk, run, lift, climb, go biking, swim… Use your body! 5. Say: I can! 6. Create something! Write, build a house (or a doll’s house), paint, take photos, go woodworking, gardening …

You might say that doing the things in the list above is not realistic when you are feeling down and not in a good shape, mentally and physically, perhaps even a little depressed. But then I say, based on my experience and what I have seen and can see every day in my life:

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!

If you look backwards in your life, you may easily see that things that seemed impossible at a given moment, are possible today. Here’s an example:

Many years ago I was a young teacher, married, and father to a daughter. I was teaching languages to students in an upper secondary school. I liked my work, I loved my daughter, and I wanted also to love my wife. But our relationship wasn’t good. I will not go into that here, but what happened was that I felt unhappy and that the reasons for that were complex.

This was during the Cold War (the 1970s), and I felt an increasing existential anxiety, a strong feeling that the world was insecure and that things were not good. The future was a big, black bird that stood with wings spread before me and wanted to hack out my eyes.

I had since the early sixties struggled with my fear of the outburst of an atomic war. It was a terrible discovery when I became aware of this, the situation in the world: thousands of nuclear rockets pointed from the Soviet Union westwards against Europe and the USA, and the same in the other direction.

My fear and anxiety became worse throughout the 70s. It even came to express itself in a physical way. I felt a pain in my breast, and I started to think of cancer. I was afraid of that terrible illness and feared the cruel pain I would have to endure before finally dying of it.

I seriously began to think of the illness as real, and I feared that I was going to die. With that perspective living a happy life began to seem impossible to me.

(Paradoxically enough, I did not stop smoking. — I quit smoking a decade later, but that’s a different story.)

Then this happened:

Ibegan to write a story. I believe I did so as a kind of protest against the death threat. I began writing a story in the third person, about a young man who was ill. He suffered from inexplicable pains in his breast, and he tried to make as good as he could to handle the situation.

I can see that the act of conceiving and writing this book was my way of standing up against the threat of death. My way of defeating the impossible.

I became taken by my writing project. I went into it with all of me, writing on the book all the time, when I had time, next to work and family life. Probably for a period I used much more time and energy than I should have on my writing, and too little on my work and family. But I persevered. I went on writing on my book, which was to become a novel.

I contacted the publishing house. They liked the draft and sent it back to me with recommendations and advice. I worked day and night on the book. I even tried to skip sleep, which was not wise at all, and no success, of course.

When the novel was published, it became fairly good reviews from some newspapers, less good from others.

The national television channel invited me to a literature program on the new books that had been published that autumn, and I participated with a couple of other authors who also had published books on the same topics: illness, fear of death, death.

That autumn I could say to myself that I had clearly succeeded my writing project, something I could not even have dreamt of a year or two earlier.

So: Nothing is impossible!

Now:

How can you change your life, even if it seems impossible?

Well, first you need to know: Is a change in your life possible, desirable, needed — or is it not? Maybe after all you don’t want any change — and that’s okay. Your decision!

If maybe yes — allow yourself to go through the list below.

1. Slow down. Sit, feel, think.

Life in our society has accelerated and still does. You need to slow down, stop a little, sit down and feel what’s inside. You have to think! Where are you in life, how are you feeling, what do you think you are doing with yourself, with your life?

Everybody is thinking, all the time. But it should not be an endless stream of (un-)consciousness. Think with a purpose! Who are you? Who do you want to be? Compare your self from yesterday with the person you want to be tomorrow.

2. Talk with the ones near you

No one is made for perpetual silence. I can say it, because I am a very silent, introvert person. I thrive in my own company. I like listening to music, reading, writing. But I realize I also need to be social, I need to talk with other people, listen to what they say, hear what’s behind the words.

Not least I need my nearest ones for emotional reasons. I am not an independent isle of rocks in an enormous ocean. I am part of the world, I am interconnected with the ones near me and many, many others, more distant people with whom I feel connected, share ideas, knowledge and humour.

3. Always speak the truth

This one was easier that I thought. The benefits of always speaking the truth, or at least not lying, are obvious. It’s so much easier to know what we can rely on and remember when we say what’s true, and don’t lie.

4. Exercise! Walk, run, lift, climb, go biking, swim… Use your body!

One good reason why I go to the gym, are the sensations I feel in my body and the mental uplifting when I have done a good hour of training, for instance cycling. When I sit on the bike and the pulse is approaching 80+%, I have plenty of new ideas about life, about what I can write about, or what I can do together with my family in the weekend or during the next vacation. Even during and after the yoga flow sessions I feel uplifted, happy. It’s amazing!

5. Say: I can!

I believe people much too often hold back and hesitate when they think of things they could do, for instance in order to live a more rich and adequate life.

Every human should always have this in mind: There are no limitations, the existence offers plenty of opportunities. If you want to go down in weight, if you want to climb a mountain or if you want to educate yourself and qualify for a job or a profession, it’s always the same thing you have to do to start:

Define your goal, discuss with yourself the reasons why you want to reach that goal. And say: Yes, I can!

6. Create something! Write, paint, take photos, build a house (or a doll’s house), go woodworking, gardening, etc, etc

There is a particular satisfaction and energy in creative processes. All humans have the potential in them, because they are humans!

Not every writer needs to write bestsellers. Most writers write for their own pleasure first, then for the potential readers.

Not every painter needs to paint pictures for the annual exposition at the national gallery. The pleasure resides in the act of painting, creating something that’s totally new and unseen.

Thank you for reading!

Feel free to share.

Previously published Oct 6, 2018 · in Good Morning Insights.

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