Mental Health - Widower Experience (WX)

Optimist Day is celebrated on the first Thursday of February and takes place on February 1 this year. The day focuses on building and sustaining a positive future. Are you wondering how this is possible? Well, anything can be achieved as long as you stay focused and optimistic. And for me it is part of being stoic. Pessimism and optimism from the perspective of a stoic depends on our / your perception of the bigger picture – our place in the grand scheme of things. Stoicism Isn't Pessimistic. I see it as boldly optimistic. One of the most common myths or misconceptions about Stoicism is that it advocates the suppression of emotions. Critics often misinterpret Stoicism's emphasis on emotional self-control as advocating for a numb, cold or unfeeling existence. People who know me or just met me knows that I am far from suppressing emotions :-)  How do I explain Stoicism to people in my life who are not familiar with philosophy and are looking for a simple explanation?  One valuab...

When I tell the people - that I discovered that I am stoic - they often say: "No not you! You are not a sourpuss or grinch!". And stoics are often seen as selfish and introverted to others.  Then I tell the people that I discovered that not long ago and that stoicism has nothing to do with being grim, sober, or humorless – a suppressing of emotions and withdrawal from the world – it is, in fact, a simple and immensely practical set of ways to deal with challenges in my point of view.  I see stoicism as a way of life, and by the way there is no formally agreed definition what it means in particular and for everyone. And a number of people think that stoicism doesn’t sound a laugh a minute, you might like to read what Seneca once said, “Laughter, and a lot of it, is the right response to the things which drive us to tears.” (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known simply as Seneca (or Seneca the Younger), was a stoic philosopher and rhetorician). Stoicism means to me living in acknowl...

Situations that are out of our control and / or cannot be changed - are challenging - but obstinately fighting or trying to change them most often all in all causes will only causes pain and frustration. As ... surprise they are out of our control and / or cannot be changed. Letting go is not giving up - it is part of awareness and self-awareness - Letting go stands for gaining deeper understanding and acceptance of yourself - it is part of recognizing our own needs and values, and gaining insight into what really matters in life for you and as well for yours. So when we have the courage to let go of the things that cannot be changed, we open a new door for ourselves to greater happiness and growth. We learned to accept it, focus on what we could control, and create a better future for yourself. “ Patience you must have, my young Padawan, ” says Yoda once to Luke Skywalker. And I am pretty sure we all know the serenity prayer: “ God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can...

Thoughts that are "positive" are not a good way to approach life, in spite of common sense and self-help advice. Friends advise you to "hold out hope." Gurus of self-improvement advocate for "the law of attraction." My heart and soul are filled with 'Aye' and 'Nae'. Because thinking like this only breeds disappointment, despair, and anxiety. (Why, in your opinion, do most people lack productivity and low self-esteem?) Instead, I developed a life strategy that is actually much more effective for me: I began practicing stoicism without realizing it was that. This article will outline / list five essential Stoic concepts which helped me and I hope that they will help you "upgrade" your thinking and gain confidence in your ability to accomplish ´'challenges of life'. Develop mind power All humans possess the ability to think, feel, and use their minds. Thoughts give us opinions about other people, things, and ourselves. These ...

Thoughts and feelings are intimately linked, more like two sides of the same coin.  An important goal of looking at your life, meaning and important things of life, and dealing with it is  - from my point of view (and I am a stoic ) in general is to learn to control what we can - our judgments and beliefs and what we do with our lives - and let go of the rest. This is a lesson I experienced and learned by my stoic way of living and looking at challenges. For that matter, learning to separate what we can control and what we can’t is an important life lesson for us all - I think. Recently I heard of the ABCs of Emotions I am firmly believing that how we deal and think about life and challenges in life have a determining effect on our emotional states. And as I think in pictures and structures - like the ABC model - I heard of lately.  A  = Activating life event .... that cause / bring on the trigger for an emotional response, reaction, or feeling B  = Belief...

There are many reasons why inner peace is important in all aspects of life - but the most important reason is YOU! Inner peace means being calmness - mentally and spiritually calm - being aware of yourself, in sync with yourself, with your emotions despite the everyday challenges of life. When you found and have peace of mind, you’ll not be swayed by what people think about you or the events and challenges you encounter. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us and all the curveballs and trick plays of life. Self-awareness, love and peace of mind do protect you. It teach us to survive… to live now… to have the courage to confront each day. Finding inner peace is a personal experience, and peace means something different for everyone. There are several ways to find peace within yourself  - being at peace with yourself can mean: Feeling secure about yourself and your path Being mindful and self-aware Finding the ability to let go No matter how you achieve it, in...

Yesterday I became aware of Hanna or better a good colleague made me aware by Linkedin. Hanna faced and is facing ALS - and I see - no there are so many things in common - My wife came down with PPMS (Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis) which is characterized by a gradual, steady and often uniformly continuously worsening of symptoms without relapse. As well, for my wife's disease there was no way of predicting how this was going to progress. Many people can live for decades with Multi Sclerosis and as well with PPMS (Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis) but my wife only had less than one decade from completely healthy to having only the ability to move the middle three fingers of her left hand in the morning hours.  People with PPMS and ALS and many other similar diseases know that they have only a limited time. These diseases attack certain nerves of the body, affecting muscle and nerve function. For that reason, they share many of the same symptoms, especially i...

My stoic mantra ... Go as far as you can. When you get there You will see how it goes on. Your path and purpose will become clear and become yours - when you begin to trust yourself. The path - your path is the destination. Live your life for you with self-awareness, trust und confidence You have to trust in yourself - trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, good in others ... whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. When you look to the past, don't sit and dwell on your regrets. Instead, focus on the things you learned from each experience and how they may enrich your future. Use the past not as something to hold you back, but as a method for reaffirming the drive to move forward on your chosen path. Live your life for you and not to please expectations Social pressure is deceiving - we all become influenced without noticing it. Before we realize we lost control of our lives, we end up envying how other people li...

This article should not trying to make you have more positive thoughts or more rational thoughts - or at least not completely - perhaps partly - as that's how I do it as stoic. Even more I am trying to help you to have a different relationship to your thoughts, and your fears. Fear, anxiety and panic can severely affect life. This no question. And yes there might be and for sure a short-term relief is occuring when fears are avoided and fearful situations are prevented, avoided, or bypassed. However, avoidance will preserve and maintain the fear in the long term, and will further limiting life. The solution most often will be found in facing your fears. Fear is just a feeling - it is that easy - but as well - that challenging  Same as we can not turn on and off the feeling of love and mourning - we can not turn of the fear of something. But the moment we accept out fear and embrace it with compassion - the moment we can begin to create and build upon our own self-trust. The thing i...

The pain, hurt and sorrow of grief are so individual as the people we are and what or who we lost. Especially when we lost a beloved person - it can often cause you to want to withdraw from others and retreat into your shell - your own - your safe place. But having the face-to-face support of other people is vital to healing from loss. Even if you're not comfortable talking about your feelings under normal circumstances, it's important to express them when you're grieving - or just to be with someone, sitting somewhere, walking along a beach or through a forest, watching mother nature. Finding any words, finding the right words will be hard - often almost unpossible - whether you are the griever or the one who want to be with the griever, give yourself time, often a lot of time is needed. While sharing your loss can make the burden of grief easier to carry, that doesn't mean that every time you interact with friends and family, you need to talk about your loss. Comfort ...

The story of lost love is one most of us can tell, and the question, "Do I want to fall in love?" "Why do relationships fail?” "What to do when I loose my love?" Whether we know it or not, most of us are afraid of really being in love. While our fears may manifest themselves in different ways or show themselves at different stages of a relationship, we all harbor defenses that we believe on some level will protect us from getting hurt. Joy of love and the pain of love As stoic - I believe in balance - real joy and real pain are mutually dependent When we fully experience true and real joy or feel the preciousness of life on an emotional level, we all too often have a presentiment of feeling or expecting great amount of sadness. Many of us shy away from the things that would make us happiest because they will or might also make us feel pain, sorry, or even guilty in one or the other way ... or already worry about grieving upfront. And I am sorry to tel...

Self-awareness starts and goes on with a continuous process and perception of yourself - including your personality, strengths, weaknesses, passion and more and your emotions- and this leads you to a knowledge about yourself, acquaintances and familiarity - referring to an objective and non-judgemental evaluation. Why me - why should you value self-awareness so much? Sometimes what we feel can fool us. Feelings and emotions are highly subjective. Without self-awareness, our emotions can lead us to false beliefs. When you know yourself well and you are able to judge yourself at least a little more objectively, it's much easier to break free from emotional bondage and challenges. If you deal with it in a more reflective way, you can deal with the ups and downs of life better because you understand them better - better understand what you want and what you want, should or must do next. Emotions are the essential part of life Emotions are an integral part of who we are, but they are no...

In a talk that's by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let's face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. "A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again," she says. "They're going to move forward. But that doesn't mean that they've moved on." Nora McInerny • TEDWomen 2018  •  15 min ... And what I really love is the part where and when she talks about the fact that she slips to the Present Tense when she talks about her deceased husband - and that is what I recognized as well when I talk about my wife - memory are memories - but my wife is still with me - not only in my case I recognized it as well each time when I meet people who find 'their way' to deal with the lost. What I firmly believe and even hope is ...

Life is challenging - if it would not be challenging - I firmly believe life would be boring. I have and everyone has power over my / their mind (in most cases - and if not it's OK as well) ... but I do not and nobody has this power regarding outside events. Realise this, and you will find serenity, patience, and resilience - at least I believe so. Behaviours, beliefs, values, biases and perceptions of other people are outside the reach of our control, and as such they are things that we need to learn to accept. My understanding and learning of life is that we can’t escape these things, we can’t escape contact with people we disagree with, we can’t escape people we find rude or abrasive, all we can do is learn to accept them so that they lessen the impact on our peace of mind, while at the same time working on developing ourselves to act in a way that aligns with who we want to be. These thoughts came to my mind while I have to deal once again with lost, suizid events next to me an...

I already wrote a lot about design and life. But more and more I see that for myself both are the same or almost the same. I think that the aim of design is to make users, people, humans happy - and life has the same aim - I have my life to be happy. And for both it is true as well - working on a design  and as well  living your life can be challenging, and there is no holy grail, no golden path to luck, joy and success ... There's much more to design and life than what we, you and I see.  Whether I had to design something as town planner and architect (where I started my career) or now as designer for digital products - what is in front of us is a blank paper - and already at this moment I ask nyself and you should ask yourself - are you taking the familiar 8.5″ x 11″ (America) or an A4 (Europe)  or  do you tear a page from huge roll of paper? Meaning are you confining / limiting yourself without good reasons - only because these boundaries are c...

“Patience you must have, my young Padawan,” says Yoda once to Luke Skywalker. Patience is a virtue that we often lack today. We seem to be constantly pressed, pushed for time - scampered and rushed - and when we have to wait, it drives us crazy.   But that doesn't help - it never helped, and it will not help. On the contrary, when we feel stress, we only harm ourselves.  Following you will find a few tips on how you can learn to become more patient, persistent and relaxed. Serenity and Patience With more serenity and patience, you can go through life much happier. You can deal with stress better, which can even save you from burnout in the long run and make you a happier person. What you should know: The decision whether you continue to rush through the day stressed out and being in a rage and you hit the ceiling at every opportunity is something you alone can do and you allow or not. Wouldn't you rather convert this negative energy into something positive? Serenity ...