2nd November 2017
If someone asked me what my favourite emotion was, I’d definitely say excitement. I love the anticipation of feeling excitement, the butterflies in your stomach, the happiness associated with it. Unfortunately I don’t think I experience it that much, but there are two main things lately that have excited me.
I’m meeting someone this Saturday who I met on a mental health forum called Elefriends – a supportive online community of people who are struggling with or have struggled with mental health problems or any emotional difficulty (Which is all of us, may I add). We’ve spoken for over a year, and the other day he happened to be in the city when I was out. Beforehand I wanted to keep it online, because I feared how things may change and whether things may deteriorate as a result of meeting, but as soon as he mentioned that he was heading in the same direction I didn’t even question it. I just went towards that area and we ended up meeting spontaneously for the first time! Since meeting him we’ve agreed to meet again, and I feel excited about it. It’s really nice to have something to look forward to, and to have someone in your life whose company you enjoy. I don’t think there’s anything quite like excitement – it has a sort of adrenaline to it, a rush of emotion which drives you. And I’m excited because we connect, and he’s a really important person in my life.
The other thing that excited me was returning to a second day of training following day 1 last thursday – involving a mentoring position through my Uni. How geeky does that sound? But it did, and I wrote more about it in another post. It taught me how sheltered and isolated my life has been since being a university student, and how my lifestyle limits me and my potential – yes, I volunteer and I do good things, but nothing compares to simply being around like minded, friendly people who are interested in what you have to say. It made me look forward to going back – I didn’t get a sense of dread and anxiety, I felt welcomed and respected by everyone involved, and that’s what excited me to go back and experience. Again, it’s a unique emotion – it reminds me of how fun and enjoyable life can be, and how often the simple things of life like interaction can drive you.
Does life welcome excitement? How hard is it to bring excitement in to your life, what with other commitments and heavy workloads? What if mental health gets in the way and excitement feels impossible? There are days when I just feel as though I’m destined to be unhappy and never experience any kind of positive emotion like happiness and excitement. But these few experiences have made me feel as though we have to try. We have to find those things in life that excite us, because we all deserve it, and it’s a pleasant thing to experience in life!
Think about what excites you, and whether you need more of it in life. You can get that excitement, it isn’t impossible.
Take care of yourselves.
X
Reflecting on well-being. 
I find excitement difficult. Whenever I get excited about something big, my mind makes me worry that it won’t work out, that I’ll mess it up or something will go wrong. So the only things I can get excited over are little things, but that seems a bit pathetic! At the moment there’s something potentially exciting in my life, but I try not to let myself think about it, because I tell myself it probably won’t happen anyway and the more excited I am now, the more upset I’ll be down the line when it doesn’t work out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s such a good point and I do that a lot. We don’t want to be disappointed so we protect ourselves from feeling excited and it not ending well. That in itself is worth exploring, because something in our lives are making us insecure and lack hope, it could be a simple change of mind set, or just being more open to atleast acknowledging that things can go well and that it’s okay to be excited. And if it doesn’t, we live and we move on.
LikeLike
This is something I have to think about a lot lately in my traumatic brain injury recovery. For the longest time I have been letting depression and anxiety be the driving force of my days, but slowly been gaining back control. Photography has been that excitement for me, and has helped me tremendously. Thank you for sharing this. Good reminder and will impact many!
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing that, that’s a really nice insight. I’m really glad you can maintain a degree of excitement despite what you’ve been through.
LikeLiked by 1 person