Self-Help - Fluid Fountain

September 27, 2021 / 1 Comment

Anxiety and Uncertainty

Anxiety wrote this article. The culmination of stress, worry and doubt has always been difficult to encapsulate and express. The feeling is often too melancholy. I refuse to give in and remember writing remains the strongest outlet for the feelings and thoughts buried inside me. Today’s movement for mental health encourages me to share my experience. Anxiety is a normal response; humans naturally feel worried and doubt when faced with uncertainty. The modern age, however, brings new pressures, an overabundance of expectations, interactions and information that are all too difficult to restrain. I describe my experience, conversing through the first anxious responses to the deeper-seated anxiety found in social interactions. I then explore some means to managing anxiety. A paradoxical truth remains, more exposure to uncomfortable situations forms the primary means to overcoming fears and doubts. One may still desire an immediate prognosis which Action Commitment Learning offers through brief practical steps. The battle with anxiety may not be about eliminating such feelings entirely but managing how it affects us.

June 18, 2021 / 0 Comments

Winning The Writing Battle- Writing Down The Bones

Writing has always been a struggle for me. Not the physical part of getting my hand moving across the page but the mental barrier dragging me back to my slumber. Ideas, images and tones bring torture when the struggle to package it all together seem overwhelming. Every writing journey gets caught staring into perfection. The first draft means cutting through the dense jungle, not knowing where and how worthy the mammoth prize awaits you. In the darkest times, many writers roaming the writing landscape will feel lonely and worthless. During my leap into writing, my immense mental battles showed me writing can be a love-hate relationship. However, one year ago a special book helped me to find a greater love for writing and the unpredictable journey. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is a unique self-help book for all writers. She offers valuable spiritual and mental lessons, holistic ways to overcome tormenting mental demons and find confidence in writing. Too quickly do we forget writing is an art form that takes many different shapes and sizes. Writing demands patience, planning and practice. Whatever the writing task, we all writers would appreciate a push to believe in our writing and stop overthinking things. Here are some of my key takeaways from Writing Down the Bones to keep you believing and writing.

April 18, 2021 / 3 Comments

How ‘Positive Thinking’ Causes Destruction

Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown throws the towel on today’s age of positive thinking. Like with his enigmatic charisma, he guides readers on a different path to ‘happiness’. One that halts the pelting, positive treadmill and focuses on finding acceptance in the reality of disappointment and joy. His graceful writing stretches 446 pages and makes clear readers do not need yet another ‘quick rich scheme’ or a book jammed with positive quotes. After finding myself binging on plentiful ‘inspiring’ messages, I appreciate his view that positivity guides have paradoxically caused discontent in needing continued positivity. Brown introduces Stoicism as the old age thinking to rediscover an approach to finding resilience, acceptance, and happiness in precarious human life. He carves open the stoic perspective by taking the reader through a phenomenal breadth of knowledge, history, philosophy, and psychology. The book offers lots to contemplate, from angles of life to acceptance of death. Ultimately, this book provides a framework to discover and take greater happiness from ordinary life. This article will not be a book review and instead focus on Brown’s interesting contempt of today’s ‘positive thinking’ mantra. Why has the positive thinking movement become such a toxic barrier to happiness? How can positive thinking become suddenly negative and destructive?

March 6, 2021 / 0 Comments

How to make the most out of university

After leaving university, my precarious existence has made me question whether a stronger mindset could have carved a stronger path. Thoughts about job security, money, housing, relationships and more have come flooding into mind for someone who only thought about learning. Now, perhaps like others, I find myself as a lone fish wandering the seabed. Learning can no longer be the sole focus. The need for survival and building a future turns a period of curious abstraction and rationalisation futile. The market comes with a price and demands its character and practice. After years stuck in the academic hole as a naïve youngster, the leap into the competitive economy been a difficult and awkward one. Graduation soon brings with it a stretch of adulthood, entering spiralling questions about one’s role, purpose and prospects. If you are like me, still wandering this lush planet, life looks all but ominous amidst continuous job applications and anxiety over what the future holds for you. Estimates suggest more than 2.3 million graduates are searching for a job while only around 30,000 graduate job vacancies are advertised per month. University is life-changing, it can be the proudest feeling for not just students but also their family. However, despite the many successes’ university can bring, my time after graduation was a descent into the abyss. I suddenly felt lonely and worthless. The paradox being a university degree never felt so worthless. While I do not regret the enlightening experiencing of going to university, the purpose of this article is to remind students there is great value in thinking practically about their future. Gaining knowledge and intelligence is great but it is not the same thing as experience and wisdom; a degree is not everything, work is not everything.

January 18, 2021 / 1 Comment

Cleaning not as a chore but for greater mental health

Cleaning is not just a chore but a chance to clear your mind. As time has gone on, I have found that tidying and cleaning the house has become a valuable escape from anxious thoughts and stress. After spending an entire day, draining my brain of energy and wanting to just lay back, cleaning has served as a way to both get active and forget all that’s happened. It recently came to me why do many of us view cleaning and tidying so negative? Of course, in our busy lives, cleaning and tidying the house is an extension. However, we are too quickly overlooking the importance and benefits of cleaning to our mental health. Rarely is there an activity that forces you to switch off and find fluid productivity in seeing the immediate practical improvements to one’s environment. Time out each day to clean and tidy can also be our means to practice self-compassion by taking care of ourselves and those in our households. Cleaning should be an activity to calm the mind and build companion and comfort within our humble abode.

Anxiety and Uncertainty

Winning The Writing Battle- Writing Down The Bones

How ‘Positive Thinking’ Causes Destruction

How to make the most out of university

Cleaning not as a chore but for greater mental health

Pin It on Pinterest