Tonight I went to someone’s house and they had positive and motivational slogans very fashionably painted on their walls.

@MoonlightLullaby i think personal mantras can help, but it has to be tailored to suit the person .
Like i had one that said 'its ok to be kind to yourself'. And that helped .
But most of them are bullshit when applied to real life.
Like "its ok to say no"... Not to your boss it isnt ! 😂
And "live laugh love " is depressing when you can only "exist , cry, and feel numb ".

Idealism is whats causing half the mental illness these days . People dont realise that its normal to feel anxiety , saddness , stress. Its all part of life . Its impossible to reach eternal happiness .

@OogieBoogie [quote]Idealism is whats causing half the mental illness these days . People dont realise that its normal to feel anxiety , saddness , stress. Its all part of life . Its impossible to reach eternal happiness .[/quote]

You said it best! Too many people are trying to reach the unattainable by ignoring their feelings and thinking happiness is a mindset. It's just another feeling and feelings can be fleeting. We need to feel each one that decides to visit if we want the best for ourselves. With that being said, it's not healthy to continuously dwell in the bad emotions either. It's all about balance and I'm trying to find that with my friend anxiety, but it's hard to do that if it's innate/genetic, chronic and PTSD is also involved. We need to be more gentle with ourselves in these instances and I've learned to say it's okay not to be okay today.. maybe tomorrow and find peace in that.🌺

This super positive person that I've mentioned, told me she's learned to sheild herself from anxiety. Wtf. Plus I was told the opposite of love wasn't hate, but fear instead. All that really helped me. Not.🙄🤭

@MoonlightLullaby "shield herself from anxiety? --- WTF!?!
....that mentality sounds like a recipe for a nervous breakdown in the future.

I TOTALLY agree every emotion needs time to visit. To be felt , to let flow . Yes, any negative chronic feeling isnt fun, or healthy . But its there for a reason .
The only way my panic attacks have gotten any 'better' , is by pushing through them. Its sucks , theyre awful, embarrassing, exhausting, scary amd i feel torn open. But until i let them flow, and didn't run away from them , they just kept getting more frequent.

I agree, its about balance. (And probably energy flow and all that)
I have this strong gut feeling that if you block energy : you do youself more harm. We never stop laughter or joy or excitement, so why stop the flow of fear or anger or sadness?
Plus, i believe, if you shut one emotion down, it affects your abilty to feel the other ones properly .

Yes, we want happiness or contentment, but life is like light : a spectrum . If you cut out part of it , you cant see properly .

I did read somewhere once that the possible reasons why we have become so mentally/emotionally unhealthy is - we have it so good.
Food , fresh water, shelter, clothes, entertainment on tap, transport .

Physically, we are never pushed to limits . No shivering , no hunger, no thirst , no predator fear etc. We have exceded our natural state and now stuff our psyche with perpetual entertainment. Which is an addiction . The problem is we have evolved our environment for a better life so much, and for so long , we dont realsie how content we are : its the only way of life we know .
But - its not healthy .
Mix that with a diet of processed foods....and look what is happening -
We are slowly dying from the inside.

We were once social animals that survived and thrived in groups, lived off the land . We were connected to our lives .
No we are isolated individuals, working just to survive in some job that rarely has any passion to it, and live off manufactured processed crap. We are connected to nothing....but ourselves .

And now we are obsessed with ourselves .
I dont know what the solution is .
But i do know, we have spent 6000 years searching for happiness, and we still havent achieved it as a species . Maybe , just maybe, its NOT the answer.

I have an incling , that what you said about peace is probably closer .
That instead of fighting ourselves , and each other, and life, and maybe stopping , just to live the moment, and find the peace in doing so, might just stop us hurting for an impossible goal.

@Justenjoyit probably not.