Lately I’ve been feeling the best I’ve ever felt in my life. About 2 weeks before new years eve I got to a point where I was spent with partying. I’d been going out relatively every weekend… well… since I was 16 really. I’m 37 now and leading up until that week before nye I’d been feeling like absolute ratshit. Not just physically but mentally, emotionally as well. I didn’t like where I was at in life. So, luckily after one weekend of partying I was not interested in smoking on the Monday, I didn’t feel like one so I took that opportunity to not have another. But I also knew that that would mean axing the social life. I have no self control so if I put myself in that position again ie: drinking, partying, socialising then it was inevitable that a cigarette would end up in my mouth… along with other things that were leading to a bad time mentally (although a great time for a few hours). And I was ready for that. I was ready to swap the social night time activities for day time stuff. And well…. MAN AM I GRATEFUL I MADE THAT SWITCH. Holy potaytoes. Seriously. Like wow. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t just stop socialising and drinking and smoking and now PHOOOMPH life is a million times better. OH HELL NO. It was a MASSIVE transition. There were days and days of frustration, depression, isolation, just shit feelings.. sadness… I mean it was all y’know.. meaningless but it was there, however small and unimportant the feelings were, I still had to deal with them. So, after a week or 2 of this utter funk I was in, I started doing little bits of exercise. I joined a gym (and cancelled my membership yesterday, I’ll get to why soon) I headed out to the park on sunny days and did some yoga. I started jogging. Fixed my bike and then started riding to the gym, to the park. Started eating well. I’d prepare overnight oats the night before and have that to start the day with dates and walnuts and almonds, I’d make my energy mix again like I used to and started making smoothies with really healthy good stuff. I’ve started drinking peppermint tea, camomile tea before bed, adding actual lemon and pieces of ginger to hot water in the morning, I started cooking dinner more often rather than getting take out. Started making chana masala, dahl, pot pies, spinach and greens asian style with garlic and ginger and oyster (vegan) sauce and just… doing stuff that felt really really good. But the thing that has been the icing on the cake…. the thing that’s elevated this whole experience? Headspace Guide To Meditation. At first I scoffed at the thought of a meditation course on netflix. I mean how fad-dy and naff could you get? But for some reason I gave it some time. And it has changed everything. I’m now doing yoga in the morning at home to classical music, I’m meditating afterwards to the show and my mind and thoughts are expanding, like I am a participant to these changes happening to me, I can feel and see them happening. I’m thinking better, I’m understanding other peoples problems and putting myself in their shoes, my compassion is growing, my appreciation is growing, my GRATEFULNESS is expanding, my irritation is subsiding, my impatience is abating, my anger is slower to rise. I remember when I started taking ecstasy back in the day and my friends and I would say to each other “Why??? Why the hell isn’t everyone doing this??? The world leaders need to be taking this stuff there would be NO MORE WARS everyone would love each other!” Sigh… how naive we were… My point is I honestly believe now as an adult that meditation, exercise - but crucially here not gym and heavy weights but yoga - and a healthy diet are the keys to a better mind, a better life and a pathway to a better society. That’s all I wanted to get out for today.
