By Yael Reiss
I hope you enjoyed the festive season, and I wish you a happy new year and an easy time landing back into “normal”… or maybe step out of “normal” this year? Maybe add something exciting? I call it “to participate more in life”.
Depression as well as anxiety limit the extent to which we enable ourselves to participate in life. Being busy or just embedded in our routines have the same tendency. Life has so much to offer. How much of that do we allow ourselves to take in? That depends on us really. Stop and smell the roses, if you will. But do we?
For example, I have jumped into the water this week starting Jiu-Jjitsu martial art which I have contemplated doing for quite a few years. Although I have painful bruises and getting to know some muscles I didn’t know existed, it’s nice to wake up with a feeling of renewal, excitement and curiosity this week 😉 Even if I only try it out, I know I’ve tasted something that life has to offer that I was curious about.
What for you might be something you can add to your life now (or take away…) that would mean that you participate more in life? For one of my lovely clients it was to say “yes” when she was invited to a New Year’s Eve neighbourhood party with neighbours she didn’t know very well, and discovering that her dread was unjustified, as she had a lovely time. For one of the Family Constellations workshop participants it was a decision to apply for a new job where she will feel excited to come to work everyday, and for another it was feeling whole about trying for a baby.
Small, tiny or big, what can be one thing you want to do to participate more in life this year? I invite you to try it out, even just start with one little thing, or with a new routine for a week or two, in which you experiment with participating more in life. If you like it, continue another week, continue with another small step, until you feel safe to be a person who participates more in life.
