Walk in the park, the moment of the day dedicated to my mental health and mindfulness.
I am a person of habits. I like to wake up every day and hydrate my body, and also drink a cup of coffee and I sit down to start to organize my day mentally. At times, maybe thinking about every step that I take can sound or come across as obsessive, but I am on my way to "live the life that I want to live", which is the slogan of my therapist.
I believe that mental health is not just a trending subject at the moment. For me, it has been the gateway to begin my process of healing from the past, but also, it has been a tool that I try to use to carve the path of my future.
Everybody has problems, we are all familiar with trauma in some sort. For me, being a gay immigrant from Venezuela, you can imagine the little hardship that I've been through, but I am determined not to let that determine who I will be, and certainly I try every day to not come in my way for improving my life.
We all have devices in our heads, implanted ideas, philosophies, values, and attachments. Lately, I have discovered that what is working for me to be more introspective is both mindfulness and psychology.
Every Wednesday I go out of the office at 14:15 to a park nearby where I walk very slowly, consciously breathing slowly, and in the meantime, trying to appreciate the beauty of nature, like all the green trees and plants that surround me. I love green spaces, like parks, and in general, places with a lot of vegetation. I am lucky to be able to work in a place that is a little bit far from the city, so just by walking for 5 minutes, I cross a railway station that has a wooden bridge on top of it, and I get to the park that I mentioned before, which has a cute fountain where I always see dogs playing, some seats to take sunbathes, and open spaces where people practice Tai Chi, Yoga, and other disciplines and sports.
At 14:30, I go to a quiet corner where I start to talk with my therapist until 15:00 hrs.
After that, I am always thinking, but my emotions and feelings are all over around me, so I try to stay there for a couple of more minutes, and breathe in and out again, slowly, for 5-6 times, and then I stand up and walk back to my job.
Yesterday I picked some palm seeds from the palm that I found on the ground, with the intention of trying once more to reproduce them, given the fact that none of the previous palms that I had cultivated before survived.
Is this moment of the day that gives me the clarity to stay focused as much as I can to do things the rest of the day, taking small breaks of course, but I am getting conscious of very important things:
-Try to maintain stress control: I think that this is the main goal for me now. Mindfulness and reading about health have made me find out how dangerous is stress in our daily lives. Is a silent enemy, that is commonly underestimated by everyone, but that it causes a whole bunch of mental and physical symptoms and that it can limit us to live happier, healthier, and in the end to achieve our goals.
Not knowing how to manage stress may have been responsible for me trying to seek refuge in substances in the past, trying to escape, procrastinating, to avoid the discomfort, the pain, and frustration.
-Try to live in the present, being grateful for all the things that I have. Sometimes, if we go back too much to the past, we tend to feel sad or nostalgic, drowned by feelings of longingness, and on the contrary, if we think too much about the future, it is easy to get anxious about not knowing the possible outcome of our plans, goals, expectations. If we try to pay attention to our life now, the soft breeze coming through the window, the sounds of birds singing, or we just get busy watering our plants, cleaning a corner of our house, organizing things around, those type of small things, are the ones that particularly help me to remain in the moment.
In conclusion, we all need to unwind sometimes, so, for what it’s worth it, my opinion to you is: If you feel like you’re going through some rough moment mentally or psychologically, call a friend, take a walk in the park, breathe, hydrate, caffeinate, and seek for professional aid of a therapist. All of these together are the things that keep me going day by day on my way to keep discovering myself, and to change things about myself as well, hopefully for the best, and to live the way I want.
I am glad to be able to share my thoughts here with you all. I send regards to everybody, and I wish that you have an amazing rest-of-the-week, charged with love and joy and that you keep on being healthy and peaceful. Until next time.
César.