Here are my thoughts which have emerged after some excellent Moodscope blogs this week, where people have shown their weakness and hopefully gained strength; through personally opening up and receiving through their 'giving' (as Lex would say) without any need to receive.

I love the phrase, 'You can only ever live happily ever after, on a day to day basis'.

When I am down, I can only feel the past (successes) now gone, or fear the future (failures) as I see it and have a real challenge in living in the 'now'.

What I find is that I have to work very hard to find a distraction to keep me in the moment. The common behaviours leading to some progress that were over weeks or months, can be as follows:

1) Getting up usually has to be pre-arranged through a prior promise or a phone call, (my God mother would say, 'I can't hear the shower yet'), because I live on my own.

2) I need to ensure that I don't rush into the kitchen, boil the kettle, grab my muesli and spill milk while running into the living room.

3) Next, is to find is a good storyline on TV to keep my mind steady. Even then I have to record it, to be able to fast forward any adverts, or my mind can drop straight into negative thoughts and I may run back to bed.

4) Once my mood improves a bit (weeks/months), I can possibly read some fiction which keeps me turning the page. The danger is that I get depressed as I near the end and panic what next!

5) As my upward movement continues, I'd probably be able to look at emails that I may have been avoiding, as I struggle to communicate with anyone outside my living room.

6) I then may be able to read professional documents and make appointments that would force me to not only go out of the house but also meet with people.

7) I'd now be forcing myself to move, pushing myself to go back into that outside world.

8) The desired destination? To get up without any thought of not getting up.

Watching my Moodscope scores and talking to trusted friends about decisions I am making also helps, which would also be good for those with bi-polar or bi-polar 2, so that they don't go 'high'. Because if it does, they'll likely crash again, as Dave highlighted in his first excellent blog this week.

Also I find that my mindfulness practice would also move from escape and chaos, to become deeply intuitive during this journey. All of which takes me back to 'living in the now', living minute by minute and day by day.

In writing this, I was in the now, and I continue to seek those happy feelings.

What keeps you in the now?

Les

A Moodscope member.