There is plenty in our personal lives and in our world to bring us down and make us feel low. There is as much or more internally and externally to elevate our spirits to help us go higher. This is our never-ending work.
Such a significant, complicated, crucial and polarizing question.
Let me tell you what we're even talking about before we dive into the answers to this tantalizing topic.
A simple way to begin is to remind us what some of the antonyms of high are. You know them... glum, pissed, melancholy, sullen, bitter, flat. All of them fall squarely in the low realm. High is in the opposite realm. At the very top the high we are discussing is joyful, even blissful. That is where we are headed today.
It sounds like a wonderful, happy journey. But it's not a journey without many bumps and misleading, seductive detours scattered along the way.
Ever since I began my collegiate journey, in the early 1960s, getting high generally meant just one thing: getting stoned. It was almost always with mind-expanding substance. Some of the common ones were LSD, PCP, cannabis, ecstasy and mushrooms. Back then, all of them were illegal in every state, and almost every country. Today, many of them are legal and are used medicinally to help ease our way out of depression, anxiety and traumas of every kind.
What once could have sent us to prison for 10 or more years is now being utilized by our medical and military communities to free us from our own previously inescapable prisons.
This word high has many, many meanings. ...
A good way to think about the time we spend here on Earth is to look at life as if we are on a ladder, both individually and collectively. Every day we have the opportunity to be higher or lower... actually every moment of every single day. We also have the blessed opportunity to correct our slippages, learn from our mistakes and head back upward when we have inadvertently stumbled, or recklessly chosen a lower direction.
There are times we even get the opportunity to assist others when they've slipped a rung or more and wish to return to more joyful life.
Our downward direction is often not initiated by a conscious choice. Life throws us many situations that challenge our inherent desire, even need, to be high. Just a few of these are: losses of any kind, stress, rejection, illness, a dysregulated nervous system and toxic environments. Still, there are always higher pathways to take, and help available to rekindle our love and joy.
The higher we go, the more satisfaction, fulfillment and joy we experience. The lower we go, the more pain, fear and shame we experience.
Every one of us has been traveling up and down these roads since childhood. Everyone is unique and luckily, we are all in this together.
Sometimes it seems like we have a choice and other times it sure seems like we don't. There are some folks who believe we don't ever get to choose — that we don't have free will to impact our destiny. I strongly disagree but am intrigued by their logic.
The very definition of maturity includes taking a higher pathway, a pathway that leads upward toward love, courage, honesty, self-refinement, accountability, humility and service. Some maturity comes about by choice, some is simply our inherent biology. Much is learning from key role models and some is inexplicably heaven-sent.
So, what is almost guaranteed to get us higher? Here are some excellent options:
- Express gratitude throughout the day.
- Live your life's purpose even when you don't think you can.
- Live the Serenity Prayer.
- Find awe in sunsets, the stars, flowers, etc., etc., etc.
- Reduce your exposure to negative media. It can easily become addictive.
- Forgive your offenders before going to sleep every night. Resentment is toxic.
- Don't believe everything you think.
- Be much more inquisitive than judgmental.
- Make sure your apologies include both sorrow for your misdeeds and dedication to not repeat them.
- Give more to charity.
- Listen better.
- Laugh, sing and dance more.
Most of these require intentional discipline and daily practice.
Let's all get high together!
Blessings. ...
- Burt Gershater is a counselor, leadership trainer, speaker and writer. He can be reached at [email protected]
