Human beings have always looked for ways to stay in touch over the distances that separate us; smoke signals, drums, and letters.  With technological advances we’ve progressed from the telegraph to the telephone, from the written word to being able to hear one another in real time and have a conversation.  It seems to me that texting is a step backwards to the telegraph!  Faster maybe, but missing a key component, being able to hear.  Listening to someone and being listened to in turn is a far more meaningful exchange than is possible in text.  It might not seem to be that big a deal but…

There’s a new addiction taking control of peoples lives today.  An addiction to using social media.  Social media can be a very good thing when it’s used  to connect with family and friends and meet new people.  But spending hours on-line posting comments, instant messaging and texting is a sign we’ve looking in the wrong place for something we really need.

A myriad of physical symptoms accompany this habit and  give us a clue that being perpetually “connected”  when ever and where ever by cellphone or computer, isn’t a healthy pastime either; head aches, eye strain and neck strain, sleeplessness, fatigue, weight gain or lose are only a few of the physical problems and then there are  the mental and emotional consequences too; depression, anxiety, irritability, mental fatigue just to name a few.

But as long as we have an unsatisfied need, a compulsion drives us back on line.  The way hunger drives us to the refrigerator.

A genuine need can never be satisfied by a counterfeit.  Human beings are social by nature and need relationship, real connection, person to person.

There’s a commercial for a cell phone provider that illustrates the problem.  Three people are trapped together and isn’t it wonderful that they all have cell phones so they can call someone else, talk to someone else INSTEAD of getting acquainted with the people with them.  I’m being sarcastic…

We’ve been programmed to respond to bells, from child hood bells told us when to get up out of bed, when to go to class, when class was over and recess had begun.  But now as adults, we need to take back control of our lives, remind ourselves that machines work for us, rather than the other way around.

As long as we overlook the here and now and those who are with us at the moment and continue to choose a nebulous future and the loose connection texting or posting via social media lures us into, we will be missing out on what we really need, person to person connection satisfies our genuine need for real connections with others.

If you’ve been in the habit of answering your cell phone when ever, where ever you are in spite of who you’re with and what you’re doing, choose now to be with the people with you!  And let your machine work for you.  You will very likely experience some anxiety the first time you let a call go through to your voice mail, but each time you do, you’ll be taking back your life and satisfying a need for living in real time, in the moment,  and enjoying a real connection that will satisfy that genuine need for fellowship with others.

But there are mornings when just after I fold the newspaper closed on the comics, a feeling of gloom descends over me and a strong impulse to return to the comforting warmth of my recently vacated bed overwhelms me almost to tears.

Until recently when ever these dark feelings would visit my attitude was to soldier on and I’d give myself the marching orders of; just do it!  Breath and move on, on to the next task.  While not very sensitive or particularly consoling or comforting, moving on to the next task was effective.

But one recent Sunday morning when I experienced an attack of melancholy while going about my morning routine, this has been a regular occurrence around the kitchen sink, some weird association maybe, I’m not really sure, any how, a sudden onset of sadness gripped me.  In the past I’ve just told myself to keep moving.  Advice from the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” when Tom Hanks character answers the radio talk show hosts question, “how are you dealing with your wife’s death?”  He answered, “I keep breathing in and out and putting one foot in front of the other.”  So I’ve been telling myself to keep going, move onto the next task.  But this Sunday I had a realization about why it works!

Feelings are the outcome of a chosen thought.  It’s the thought that generates the feeling.   I wasn’t consciously aware of the actual thought but the feeling of sadness is a big clue that the thought couldn’t have been very supportive or affirming.

Change the thoughts, change the feeling.  It was a good start to “keep moving” but better to consciously choose to focus my thoughts on something else.

“Keep moving” is effectively moving meditation, as it shifted my thoughts to focus on what I was doing, drawing my attention and focus to the task, with the results being a change in the way I was feeling.

The feeling changed because of the change in my focus.  That change in focus is what pulled me out of melancholy.

Awareness is the opportunity to choose differently.  Now when the feeling of sadness descends, I remember this lesson learned and taking a page out of my own book, use moving mediation to bring myself into the present and integrate; mind, body and spirit, restoring sanity to live the way we’re meant to live, happily.

Bottom line:  Change your thinking and you’ll change the way you feel!

Seems to me that we are so disconnected from nature we’re out of sinc with it’s natural rhythms to the point of resisting reasonable impulses to slow down and rest.

All around us there are signs of a natural flow of increasing and diminishing energy.  Over the course of a year the sun goes through a cycle of increasing in strength from the lowest level at the winter solstice (December 21)to the highest level at the summer solstice (June 21).

There is a monthly ebb and flow of energy too, the lunar cycle, from new moon to full moon, waning to new moon.

And last but not least, with the dawn of each new day we experience a rise in energy with the rising of the sun to it’s apex at noon and a diminishing of that same energy as it’s sets and twilight ushers in the night.

Rhythms, cycles.  Plants and animals take their cue for growth and birth and hibernation from the seasons.  But humans, especially those of us who live the modern life style, expect ourselves to be able to keep up a pace, actually increase our pace, increase our productivity, regardless of natures cycles.

Could it be that SAD is merely the consequence of neglecting to recognize the need for rest?  Coupled with an unreasonable expectation that we always feel energetic, and a judgment that to be less productive is a sign we’re failing, in health?  On a task?

The worst experience I had with SAD was when I was working in an office.  I was leaving in the dark to get to work, in the dark, working all day long inside and then driving home in the dark.  In the dark being the operative word here.  That and a morbid mental perspective that tended to imagine the worst, that I must be coming down with something because I felt so tired…  Tired!  Now I pay attention to how I feel, when I’m tired I take a nap!  And without recriminations, thank you very much!  And I make a special point of getting outside for sunshine and a fresh perspective.

One of the tools I’ve used effectively, coupled with getting outside for a dose of sunshine, is meditation.   The deliberate effort to concentrate my thoughts on a “point of reference” using an inspiring quote for a contemplative type of mediation, or the more basic breathing meditation.  These are the antidote to negative thinking that’s been the root of my own experience with mental and emotional depression.

Happiness is a choice, Abraham Lincoln said that he’d observed that most people were as happy as they chose to be.  It’s that simple and that challenging, because the choice is an inner one, the quality of our thoughts.   Govern your thoughts and you determine the quality of your life.

A quote can be a positive and meaningful mental health tool if it’s used as a focal point for our thoughts.  Taking the time to read one, and to contemplate the author’s message, and to consider how the brief message applies to us personally can give us a fresh perspective and that can make all the difference.

Having a point of reference is a key to staying on course.  Without one, we wander in circles.  This is true if we’re out walking in a desert or if we lost in our thoughts.  Quotes and affirmations are to the inner world or our minds, what North is on a compass.

To fully appreciate the benefits of a quote, read it slowly the way you would sip a fine wine or nibble a chocolate truffle.  Pay attention to the “finish”  with a quote it’ll be the thoughts it sparks in your own mind. 

Savouring a quote has the same benefits for our minds that mediation has, it quiets our thoughts and restores mental equilibrium.  Quotes are the fast food of meditation when you don’t have the time to stop and be still for more than 5 minutes!

For your consideration I’d like to share three quotes from my personal collection.  Read each one, and then consider them as a whole.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been” – George Eliot

“Are you in earnest?  Seize this very minute.  What you can do, or think you can, begin it.” – Johann Wolfgan von Goethe, “Faust”

And last but not least, “Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt.