How do I regain my sense of wonder?

After watching (and napping) over the Ken Burn’s series on the national parks all week, it’s hard not to suggest that you spend time in nature. I don’t go climbing mountains but I do find that a walk in the woods or an enchanting encounter with wild (not too wild) animals is very joyful. A few days ago, we were sailing on the Intercoastal and three dolphins swam right up to the boat. It was both awe and joy-inspiring.

I also find joy in the company of intimate friends. If you could develop a few relationships with friends in addition to the wonderful relationship you have with your wife, you might find more happiness in life.

Good luck, tiny!

Some people find that being nice (simply pleasant in an ordinary way) to other people, helpful, ameliorative and selfless pays huge dividends.

Does anything give you joy?

Do you exercise?

Now that you have left social work, could some other kind of community involvement perhaps with animal causes be fulfilling for you?

When life feels meaningless or drear to me, I am always uplifted to go near water or a walk through woods.

Pleasure in little moments also helps me. Stopping when I see a magnificent butterfly; hearing a bird sing; having my pet do something unutterably charming; laughing with my so.

Also, deliberating expressing gratitude for my blessings. You can do this without a belief in religion.

It’s not about a sense of wonder… it’s about enjoying the little things. A bowl of warm pea soup on a cold day can make me infinitely happy. I wasn’t always like this, I just learned to appreciate the little happy things that life has to offer. I’m now happy almost all the time. It works.

Sure there is hope. I tended to be depressed as a teen. My college years were quite fun, but I think I did not bother to pay attention to days that were very joyful, I took them for granted. In my 20’s I developed a chronic illness and was in pain every day for almost 8 years. My life was like a fog.

In the last 6 or 7 years I experience moments of glee and I feel much more curious about the world. I think when you are happy you have to take a moment to acknowledge it, ‘I am happy today,’ so you remember. Like I have to consciously think, ‘I turned off the curling iron,’ so I don’t worry after leaving the house that I might have left it on. You have to write it into your brain. I believe strongly that we can write new pathways in our brains.

Also, I started travelling a lot again and I love it. Many times it is just a long weekend, but during the weekend I forget everything else and just take in the new place, the new scenery, time with my husband.

You have to be in the moment. Pause and be aware of your happiness when it occurs. Everything counts, even the little things like a favorite meal, favorite tv show, warm and cozy in your bed before you fall asleep at night, everything, I feel happy most of the time now.

Grab yourself a PlayStation 3, and purchase Flower, a downloadable title off of the PlayStation Network. Turn off the lights.

I’m not kidding.

Like @janbb I’d recommend you go look at nature. But try science as well. Looking at the scale of the universe compared to yourself is a really eye opening experience. And if you feel up to it give quantum physics a try. Oh and video games help a lot.

When’s the last time you took a chance, did something risky? Maybe you need a little excitement, an escape from the routine. Maybe you should get drunk, take your wife to Reykavik and learn how to play electric blues guitar – preferably all in the same weekend. Yes, life basically sucks and there’s not much we can do about that except shake it up a bit and keep things interesting for ourselves.

Get high and watch “Planet Earth”

Nature walks, regular exercise and a healthy diet. It helps me like myself.

Did you have one to begin with? Maybe it’s something you never learned.

When I think of being in a state of wonder, I think of being in awe of a place or phenomenon that is dazzling or beyond comprehension. Part of what makes something “wonder-ful” is being open (in a very literal sense) to that feeling. If the so called doors of perception are closed, feeling a sense of wonder is a long odds bet. Further, being full of depression or nihilism seems to have the opposite effect and maybe makes you feel insignificant and circumstances trifling and absurd.

Might I suggest that you’ve built and decorated your meta-physical house, and it’s not quite working for you. Perhaps it’s worth it to rethink your assumptions to see what is serving you and what isn’t. You’ve made space and set your table with the ideas and beliefs that are important to you. Do they support or leave room for a sense of wonder or happiness?

If you’re open to reading a book by the Dalai Lama, called How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life link, there’s a really heady and logical section on the relationship between nihilism and meaning. It was helpful to me to realize that nihilism isn’t practically possible.

If your experience of mind is anything like mine (and I don’t pretend to have had your formative experiences or anything similar), a good part of the answer really is about changing one’s orientation and the focus of one’s thought stream. On a fundamental level is the belief that there is room in one’s life for better feelings. Perhaps, too, is achieving balance between nihilism and meaning. As you know, too many people place too much faith in the permanence of things and the permanence of their meaning. You probably sit on the other end of the spectrum. Perhaps scooting a little more toward a middle ground (based in your perception and the perceptions of people you trust, i.e not marketers) will help create a greater sense of possibility and wonder.

Regardless, I think you need to rattle the cage of your assumptions. Go further into them or try something different that will create some space for what is missing.

Let me clarify. I find beauty in the world, all over the world really. I can even find the beauty in suffering. I have moments of happiness, and I note them when they happen, but they only happen outside of my everyday world.

I hate to get up in the morning. I let out a huge sigh before I walk into work, and a huge sigh when I leave. I am moved by habit. But at the same time, I have nothing that pulls me to change. I have no passions.

Here’s a list of things that compel me to get up in the morning:
1. All the things that my wife and my cats need from me.

Here’s a list of things that I can say I will actually, willingly, get off the couch for:
1. My wife or cats need something.
2. Going to see DMB, going to Disneyland, going on vacation.

@tinyfaery Think back to a time when you were really passionate about something. Often there’s an answer there to what you could be doing now to reconnect with what really moves you.

I think life is hard. My father used to say, “Schver tsu zein a Yid” which means it’s tough to be a Jew, but I think he just meant it was hard to be him.

I think it was Lillian Hellman who said that getting old isn’t for sissies. We are all getting old, even those of us who haven’t figured it out yet.

You say you maintain a sense of beauty, you seem to love your wife, you seem to love your companion animals; maybe you are not doing so badly.

@tinyfaery So I would do the things you love as much as possible. Does Disneyland have the ride Soarin’ like Disney World? I LOVE That ride! I got much happier when I stopped working full time. I highly recommend planning to retire early to everybody LOL.

An LA resident who loves Disneyland? Thanks, tiny, you just helped me win a really old bet with my mom (a native of LA).

Vacation, eh? So you’re a traveler. Might have to wait until retirement, but try traveling full-time. Some people are just not mention to stay in one place. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is buy a self-sustainable yacht and hit the seas.

@tinyfaery, okay do you have mental or emotional room in your everyday world for those ideas or feelings, etc.? What’s a small change you can make
today to add a small measure of beauty or wonder to your everyday existence?

I was going to suggest trying to fulfill a childhood dream or desire. Was there anything you wanted to do when you were little, but never got the chance? Try to think back to the good moments, which may have been few and far between. But in those times, was there anything you can remember wanting to do? Even if it was something as seemingly insignificant and building a fort in your living room, on a rainy day. You could do that, play in it with your wife and cats. And just be silly. Imagine yourself in a jungle, a cave in a mountain, anything.

I know where you’re coming from and I know how hard it is. I’m pretty dark sometimes and extremely cynical… Same reasons. Fucked up past. But you have your wife. Fill life with her. Experience as much as possible with her. It’s worth it and I wish you luck.

I’ve never struggled with depression and it’s hard for me to relate to, so I don’t know how helpful I can be here, but here’s the line of reflection that always fills me with wonder:

I let myself be like someone who has just arrived on the surface of this planet for the very first time, who may have seen countless worlds of barren rock or frozen darkness and just happened to stumble upon this amazing celestial jewel. I look at everything as though seeing it for the first time, savoring the unfathomable rarity and improbability of this place.

Seen through new eyes like this, absolutely nothing is unremarkable. Even the flotsam and jetsam of civilization is the outworking of perhaps the rarest process in the universe: intelligence. It’s an incredible privilege to be an eyewitness to this almost unthinkable alignment of circumstances. Every being is a virtual miracle.

I don’t know what it is about the human psyche that causes us to become inured to this stupendous spectacle for which we have front row seats.

That part of your brain that holds the synisism is the dominant one in your battle of mental war and i’m afraid to say that even if you felt like you had found“wonder“you would in fact not believe you had.hope this makes sense

@doerayme That’s not true. I had a horrible childhood as well, and I managed, after a while, to find some wonder. It mostly happens in nature, especially when I’m with people that I really care about, but it is possible. The key word you used was mental “war” – it’s a battle still taking place, and she can win.

Really get to know a small child and watch them take delight in all the new things they see in the world. I am not saying have a child, but find one you can borrow for a few hours every week. They will happily share their sense of wonder with you, and if you let it, will let it rub off on you.

I suffer from depression also and I do not even have the luxury of being able to blame it on my childhood, which was more or less normal. I do not find as much pleasure in anything as I used to get, but I would go along with those who suggest going out and viewing nature. Are there any natural areas near you? If there are nature centers that give tours or teach classes, I would hightly recommend them.

My husband used to quote what a friend once told him, “You have to love what you do every day.” I take that to mean not that you love every minute of every day, but that your daily life and work are in tune with your values and interests.

It sounds to me like you are very depressed, as you point to yourself, and I don’t think that one trip Disneyland or a national park or a DMB concert will fix it.

I think if you can find a great therapist to work with (which you may have done in the past too), it could be very helpful. I have suffered from depression and now rarely fall into the troughs I used to. Therapy helped me a great deal. (The secret has been learning to like myself and figuring out how to get what I want from life. Took years!)

I wish I had more help to give.

Exercise is good for just about everything.

Possibly the most underrated thing you can do for your mental health is to have a good social network. I had a long talk yesterday with a friend who had just moved overseas and was feeling very depressed. We talked through it and he realized the only person he had really talked to since he moved was his now long-distance girlfriend. He agreed that having social outlets would help.

So. I have a year-long pass to Disneyland that i have never used. If I can drag myself away from school we should go. Maybe we can even get some of the other Fluther locals on board?

whenever you find yourself ruminating or depressing yourself, divert yourself to something practical or else distract yourself with more hopeful thoughts.

the concept of “depression” encourages hopelessness. your thoughts and feelings exist inside your head. you can do something about them.

I think @pdworkin hit it right on the head. The most powerful thing you can give someone is a part of yourself. A smile, a kind word, or even a helping hand to someone you don’t know goes a long way to making you feel good again. It works for me, and I learned it the hard way.

When I give someone a hand, like the lady yesterday at the hardware store that needed advice on buying a piece of trim for her house, I get incredible dividends. sometimes, it is a simple thank you, or like today, it was a neighbor who brought me over three pieces of ¾ inch plywood for free, and gave me his phone number, saying if I needed more to just ask, as he had lots, and I was welcome to as much as I thought I needed.

Turns out this neighbor loved my previous Halloween displays, and when I told him we were doing it again this year, he was so excited. I bet he was just busting at the seams to tell his wife and kids, because they all love Halloween as much as I do.

To get to the point, and not to follow in @daloon’s footsteps, sorry @daloon, I see you working on something up there. if you want to get the joy back in your life, spread some joy around. Sounds cliche, but trust me, it works. Forgive yourself for the past and look to the future.

To regain a child-like sense of wonder, it helps a lot to be around children. I found working with the Foster Family program to be one of my most rewarding times. If you can do volunteer work with one or two children once in awhile, I think it would help.

If you simply cannot abide children, and I know there are people who can’t, then consider volunteer work with animals, or elderly people in nursing home. How does that help? It lets you know that you are not alone in overcoming adversity, which might help.

One of the problems with depression is that it twists and turns and makes your positive efforts into negative one, just like that. You get this idea that you should feel a sense of wonder, or that you want to feel a sense of wonder. As soon as that happens, you have a built in excuse to beat yourself up.

Hey, I am not feeling this sense of wonder. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I enjoy what other people enjoy? Why can’t I do all those tricks other people do to enjoy life? Next thing you know you are beating yourself up for not doing what you think you ought or want to do, and instead of getting more enjoyment out of life, you get less.

Now some people seem to have success by arguing themselves and training themselves into the feelings they want to have. They try to look at life objectively and use that to tell themselves why there is no reason to feel as they do. They look in the mirror and practice affirmations of various kinds—faking it until they make it.

That shit never worked for me. First of all, I always knew there was no objective reason to feel what I felt. Arguing with myself on the basis of facts never worked because my feelings had nothing to do with facts. The feelings came from somewhere else, and having nothing to do with real life, I felt like I had to make real life fit the feelings.

The affirmations also made a hash of my psyche. I tried them; they didn’t work; so I beat myself up for not doing it right, and ended up feeling even worse. These techniques, which are commonly found in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, just backfired on me.

One way to deal with this is to stop dealing with it. You don’t feel a sense of wonder? So what? Who says you have to feel that? Where is that written down? What legislature passed that law? However, if you give up your expectations, then you don’t have to judge yourself for not meeting them.

So give up your expectations! Whoa, daloon. Not so fast. That ain’t so easy. Our expectations are built into us from birth, it seems. I’m powerless over my expectations, too.

All right. I get that. You may be unable to fight them. That’s ok. You are powerless before them? That’s ok, too. The main thing is to accept that this is the way your mind works. You may not be able to control it, but what you can do is to reduce the pressure you put on yourself by distancing yourself from your thoughts. It’s like watching yourself do all this mental crap to yourself. In a way, it’s kind of funny how you mess yourself over. It’s just too much!

Ah well. What can you do? Nothing. It’s not really relevant to your life whether you have wonder or not. It’s just another expectation you have. Well, you don’t have to live your life as you or anyone else expects. You know that. You can live perfectly well without a sense of wonder.

Life is going on all the time, even as we think and judge and expect and beat ourselves up.

PAY ATTENTION!!!!

Just pay attention. You can’t control your thoughts, but you can start paying attention. Attention to what you happen to be doing. If you pay attention, you focus will change. Instead of getting involved in all those thoughts, you’ll be focused on what you are actually doing, and those thoughts will become less important.

It’s a kind of mental jujitsu. You don’t fight yourself; you just redirect your attention. And after all, isn’t what you are doing right now the important thing? What’s the big deal about your thoughts? They just fuck you over. If you pay attention to what you are doing, you can pay less attention to your thoughts, and then they can’t bother you as much.

The solution I am suggesting is that you should just give up. Stop fighting it. Stop making yourself crazy. Instead, just live your life as you live it—moment to moment. Being attentive to these moments instead of planning and judging all the time. Don’t worry. You’re not giving up your desires, nor your plans. It’s just that when you do these things, you gently redirect yourself to what it is that you happen to be doing right now.

But hey. Why should you listen to what I have to say? I’m crazy. It’s all a joke. I don’t care. It was fun thinking it through.

@daloon But hey. Why should you listen to what I have to say? I’m crazy. It’s all a joke. I don’t care. Why add this sentence to a beautiful answer?

@YARNLADY Because he is depressed and bipolar, and needs to push everyone else away to “prove” he is unworthy of our affection.

@Darwin I liked his answer, up until that.

@YARNLADY Then just ignore it. It isn’t him talking, it’s his illness.

@Darwin thank you and @daloon thank you for a great answer

I know this might have been hard to say, so thank you for sharing this

you say you suffer from depression – are you seeing a professional about that, are you on medication, is it helping? when you speak of things that move you to get up in the morning, you only list things people need from you, not things you need…that’s not a life, no wonder you feel so deflated – do you really love the life you’ve built with your wife? do you love her the way you did when you met? does she make everything better for you? if the answers are yes, the two of you should find something new to do together – try taking a dance class together or going on a trip, a spontaneous one…

another way to find meaning, for me anyway, is to work with people worse off than me…it sounds cliche but they bring about a new perspective in my life

This may sound odd, but bear with me: Try taking an assertiveness training course.

One of the things that happens to people coming out of harsh, violent, over-regimented environments is that they lose touch with their own authentic needs and desires. It sounds to me as though your life is being run (or overrun) by a sense of obligation to other people. You are doing what other people think you ought to be doing and that is submerging the real you.

You see this a lot in battered women. They become so concerned with anticipating and needs and desires of their batterer that their personalities become submerged in the relationship and they completely lose track of what they need and want to feel vitally alive. After a while, they become so shut down that they easily get stuck in rut after rut because they have no interests of their own that are real to them.

In order to recover a sense of wonder, you have to recover your sense of self. On the plus side, you seem to have a healthy curiosity, or you wouldn’t be here. What I see missing is that you do not have enough room in your life to actually explore the things you are (or could be) interested in. Assertiveness training will help you get other people off your back, in a firm but polite way, so that you have the room to explore the things that really turn you on. From the sound of it, this is going to be like an archeology dig for you, as you re-examine all the roads not taken because of the many doors that have been closed to you in your life.

I don’t agree with daloon’s “Just grit your teeth and bear it.” approach. I can tell you, as someone who has been incarcerated, there are many ways the world teaches you to stuff down your anger and other authentic emotions. To recover your sense of wonder you have to recover yourself in your true heart-of-hearts. And to do that, you have to excavate all the stuffing-down that you have done in order to please other people. The advantage of assertiveness training is that you learn how to uncork this jug without becoming either passive, aggressive, or passive-aggressive.

I just hope this doesn’t sound too much like that Stuart Smalley character that Al Franken satirizes.

@Zuma I’m smart, I’m fun,and people like me, gosh darn it!

Sorry, couldn’t resist. =)

Discover your way of spirituality. Take an interest in other human beings. Help other human beings. Become part of a community. Exercise. Take sunbaths. Take extended walks in nature, far away from cities and large towns. Improve your ear training or aural skills. Listen to wonderful music. Look at the night sky. Read interesting books. Try to understand how our universe works. It will give you a sense of wonder.