There are not enough warm and fuzzy sites on the Internet, so that is my intention for this blog.

I created my original reasonstolive blog in 2008 as a way for me to appreciate life. It was an experiment of sorts. One day I was walking when I realized I was depressed and I couldn’t live with it anymore. It felt like I either needed to kill myself or figure out a new way to live.

During this time, I essentially had a good job, lived a block from the beach, I had friends… yet inside I felt so empty and sad. Over a period of time, I came to the realization that I was likely not going to kill myself to fix the problem. I just couldn’t go through with it.

So, I was left with trying to figure out HOW TO LIVE.

I started looking for REASONS TO LIVE. My first reason was a little flower growing out of the concrete. It was so beautiful and fragile.

I think my second reason was a snail outside my front door on a rainy day.

Then there was an amazing sunset on the ocean, my favorite flower, choosing my favorite color, and learning about the things that made me ME. Each day, I took a photo and blogged about things I loved.

I had been missing out on all that was magical… but once I started looking, the world lit up and has grown brighter ever since.

Essentially, every time I felt bad I had to write about reasons to live, rather than reasons to be sad. The first couple months, I wrote most of my posts while in tears and not believing anything I was writing. I deleted, I think, the first ten or so posts — because they were all downers. Then, I would FORCE myself to write something hopeful.

And then something amazing happened.

I felt better.

A LOT BETTER

I felt so better, in fact, that after 9 months of writing the blog I felt like a different person inside. My depression symptoms were gone and they have not returned to the same intensity (I still get depressed, but there is something different about it now).

Instead, I felt weirdly happy, yet NOTHING in my outer world had changed. All was the same. But for the first time since childhood, I felt the difference from being sad as an emotion and being depressed. Sadness comes and goes; it’s not a way of life.

I was inspired to do my blogging experiment when I realized it might be POSSIBLE to get better from depression–and help others in the process.

It happened in part due to the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, which helped me realize I don’t have to be a victim of the past or my genetics or my artistic tendencies. The brain responds to habitual thought—and with long, low grade depression, it’s as much a habit as anything (at least in my opinion).

I am creating my life. So the more I created from feelings of depression, sadness, and self-pity, the more my brain was wired to CRAVE these emotions like a drug. I realized that if I were able “rewire” my brain by thinking differently (especially in the midst of sadness) that I would eventually feel better. Through writing blogs for a positive purpose, I believe I did just that. I honestly think that if you took before and after images of my brain, they would be different.

Another inspiration for me was the movie The Secret, which is a take on the law of attraction. Mainly, that movie made me question the thought that, “I don’t want to be here,” and “I didn’t choose to be alive (waaa!).” It made me realize that I DO BELONG here right now. My life is not a cosmic mistake. Perhaps, living was even a choice that I made before I was born.

That movie also made me realize that we live in a universe that is listening. Perhaps I DID want to be in this world and have this experience called life. I mean, I’m here now so I might as well BE HERE, right?

The last thing I did that year was I becoming more spiritual. I am not religious, but I do think it’s possible that things like past lives or an afterlife might exist. When I looked into some Eastern philosophy, it is VERY bad on your karma to commit suicide. Leaving before it’s your time could set back the evolution of your soul. Yikesies.

It is completely possible that you (and me) came here by choice to learn things and have experiences. Other books I’ve read about the afterlife say that if a soul leaves its body too soon, it may actually linger here — in between worlds. I’m not saying this to scare anyone (it’s just my opinion, really). But at times this belief has been an incentive to keep living.

If you are on the same wavelength as me, you might like The Center for Spiritual Living or Self-Realization Fellowship. (I’ll add more on this later — I realize these are churches, but they are pretty awesome and open minded.)

I ended my blog at the end of 2008 when I felt I didn’t “need” it anymore. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to come back to it because that 9 months was such a magical time. So, here I am starting over… And back where I started again.

P.S. Contact me (I enjoy hearing from you): 365reasonstolive@gmail.com.
If you have a question you want me to answer in the blog, let me know.

P.P.S. My name is Lindsay. I’ll put up a picture of myself or more personal bits and pieces one of these days…