The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Does anyone have advice about how to restart your creativity or imagination? This is a strange question, I know.
When I was a bit younger, I was a very keen creative writer. I always carried a notebook with me, and usually within a couple of months I'd have filled it up with ideas and would need to get a new one. I always had some short story or longer project in progress, and if I finished or got stuck with one, it was never long before I had a new idea to work on. As I've aged into my mid-30s, and settled into a steady career and routine, I feel like this has slowed down immensely. Recently I realized that I'd carried the same notebook for over a year, and it still wasn't full. I try to fill my life with new stimuli, but somehow it is as though these don't want to congeal into new writing ideas. It's not so much a question of putting time into it exactly - I have time in which I can do things like this. But if I sit down and just try to force it, I end up getting bored, frustrated, and distracted, and walk away to do something else.
Is this a normal side effect of aging and life becoming more stable and boring? If this has happened to you, did you find any effective countermeasure?
I have theories about ingesting too much information and too much screen time leading to a lack of independent thought and creativity. I'm currently looking into ways to strengthen creative areas in my mind and other brain centers that may have atrophied over years of the above.
The biggest core concept is allowing your mind to rest and avoiding overstimulation and concentration. Meditation is great for this kind of thing. You can't fill a cup that is already overflowing. Your mind can't generate new ideas when it is burdened with thoughts. I've also heard in adjacent spaces that boredom is a good catalyst for imagination and creativity. See how you go.
This feels true. I have noticed that when I am experiencing a subjective feeling of "being stressed out," I react by doing all sorts of mind-occupying or mind-killing activities; almost as though I am hiding from using my mind for anything.
Many great writers, C.S. Lewis to take one example, strongly recommended taking long walks often. I used to do this, and have drifted out of the habit. Maybe now that the weather is cooling off, I can get back into that; and with no headphones, in a familiar park.
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