bored – DSM (Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

The Same Things Every Day

How many of you feel tired of the same things happening every single day? No matter what you do, you feel like your life is repetitive as if you’re stuck in a sad loop that keeps playing over and over again. The worst part of this loop is that you have no idea how to get out of it. This loop is not necessarily bad, but it slowly eats away at your happiness because it prevents you from experiencing new people, places and things. You keep searching for a solution but end up no where new.

So what is the solution? You have to make a change. Any change; it doesn’t matter what it is. Change is the process of breaking old patterns and habits and instilling new ones. Change is the gasoline for your vehicle, in this case, your life. You are the driver of your life; not the other way around. You need to make a change and no one can tell you what that change is; you have to discover it for yourself.

Change is not always easy because we often hold ourselves back. We know what we have to do and change about ourselves, but we often don’t because we are comfortable with our present reality. See the irony? How can we be comfortable if we just admitted that we’re stuck in a sad loop? That’s the point! You’re stuck in a “comfortable sad loop” that is difficult for you to step out of.

Think of a hamster running back and forth on its wheel; that’s you in a nutshell! Many of us keep running on that wheel until we finally step off and realize that we’ve wasted five, ten, twenty or even thirty years of our lives. Don’t wait for tomorrow to make a change that you can make today! Even if making a change feels uncomfortable, force yourself to experience the discomfort. Oftentimes, once you get past the discomfort, you’ll experience a sense of satisfaction, something along the lines of, “I actually feel better now! Can’t believe this.”

We all go through this “sad loop” from time to time; it’s not something easy to escape from. But if you have the determination to step out of this sad loop and improve your life, then you are on the right track. But you have to make a change and only you can do it; no one can do it for you. We can each give advice to one another but at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can make the change.

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

Dealing With Feelings Of Boredom

Boredom is one of the most horrendous feelings: it drives you crazy, makes you feel worthless and can even contribute to depressive symptoms if experienced for long enough. Keeping yourself stimulated on a daily basis is very important in order to avoid boredom. But many struggle with self-stimulation.

Self-stimulation are the key words because it means that you derive pleasure from your own doing; relying on others is not an option. When you learn how to stimulate yourself with various activities, you are taking responsibility for your state of mind: you are avoiding boredom and remaining mentally engaged with life.

But when you rely on your environment to become stimulated, that can be hit or miss, especially when relying on others. People who are dependent struggle with this a lot: they experience a low self-esteem and rely on others to feel stimulated, important and worthy. If you are suffering from dependent personality disorder, then something such as attending a support group at a community-based organization can prove to be helpful.

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of boredom; we all experience it at some point through out the week, even if it’s for brief moments. In a way, boredom is a natural feeling because we are not robots that are assigned endless tasks on end; just the act of taking breaks from what we do can lead us to feel bored and unsure with ourselves.

But the difference is not allowing boredom to linger any longer than it has to; terminating it as soon as you detect it is key. And you can do this by keeping a mental list of positive activities that you can attend to when the situation permissibly arises. By knowing ahead of time which activities you can become engaged with, you can easily avoid and/or put an end to boredom.

What are your thoughts on boredom? Feel free to share your experiences and advice with The DSM Ready community, so that we can all learn from each other on how to better improve our lives together!