Do you have any advice for someone else who is in the very beginning stages of the "life is a precious gift rapidly escaping me, I have to change to become someone better and be happy before I've wasted all of it" transition? I'm tired of losing so much life and joy to grief and trauma and I also want to start creating and seeing and enjoying as much as I can for my tiny time as a carbon based lifeform but it's overwhelming to say the least
Actively seek out things that inspire wonder
Look for the good parts. There are good parts. There are interesting parts. There will always be good and interesting parts.
Treat yourself kindly. This one is difficult.
Do things out of ridiculous whimsy.
Practice cog itive behavioural exercises to self-examine and address beliefs and behaviors that are causing suffering.
Don't argue when people compliment you.
Don't rush yourself, and don't assume it'll be like this forever when you have a backslide. These things happen. Over time, they happen less.
Be honest with the people you love and trust.
Tell people how much they mean to you and what you like about them.
Help others and find satisfaction in being the stranger that did something good
Consider speaking to a medical professional, my antidepressants and anti-anxiety medical took some time to figure out but life is WAY better.
Have a silly little craft or hobby.
Let yourself be bored sometimes. Stand outside in the rain and let yourself get wet. Go on a walk. Put your phone in a different room and wander off. Meet up with a friend and go on a long walk together to nowhere in particular
Start doing things because you want to and it feels good, not just because you think it's something you should say yes to.
Say yes to things.
Take a random day of the week and go into a store or a business you've never been in before.
Compliment strangers when something about them is striking.
Read books and watch movies that make you feel the exact right amount of ecstatic and embarrassed, and make all the silly noises about it.
Collect scraps of fabric and little trinkets and all the little textures and colours you love and stash them in a shoebox or something like a tiny dragon's hoard.
Start a collection of something small and inexpensive. Like corks.
Make food with ingredients you've never used before
Make long lists of all your favorite things- flowers, bugs, songs, foods, places
Start a trash-book to fill with scraps of neat wrappers and bits of paper and colored fabric from old ruined clothes
Imagine yourself as a alien from a dead and barren world who has just arrived on this planet for the very first time and imagine how excited you would be by every little thing
Cannot recommend enough that you befriend a creature
