negative thoughts please skip if affected by...

[tribogota]

Thanks all! First of all for sharing your own intimacies. The trust implicit in sharing is gratifying. Your comments made me smile.
I do volunteer and teach as my profession so I am surrounded by moments of change and am grateful for many things each day including pain free health. One of the groups I work and hang out with are parolympic athletes and that fits my own sports interest. I would like to say that while we should be grateful to have easy mobility, they do not see their lives as that different than easy mobility people's lives. They frequently feel sorry for ME, since they see themselves surrounded by family and friends and see me as lonely They have very full and similar lives, to those of us who move on two legs with good vision and hearing. It is gratifying to volunteer. If I were a faster athlete I would love to be a guide-athlete in triathlon, but alas, both the vision and hearing impaired athletes I know are WAY too fast for me.

I am working on accepting loneliness and just living with it. I really love TE's forum. Who would have thought that a virtual community could be so trusting, loving, and warm. Thanks.

[colby]

Hey tribogota,

Sometimes we just need to reach out and touch someone. You're strong and independent, but sometimes we are just fundamentally social animals and want that human connection. I don't think it's fair to just "suck it up" and move on (not that anyone here is suggesting that), and you've got a lot of good advice here about how to cope.

I look forward to reading your posts in the forum, and wish that as with everyone in TE that we make connections with that we could all hang out in the same big room together one day.

[kacie tri-ing]

Hugs here too! Sometimes it does feel like we are in a big room! I love your posts too!

[arielmoon]

((((tribogata))))

I'm sorry you're sad.

It's okay to not be in a relationship. A good coupled relationship is a gift, but it is not necessary to have one to live a happy and rewarding life.

~snip~

Finding small happinesses in your daily life is a skill that you can learn and cultivate. This can help you grow your happiness, from little things (paying a toll for the car behind you, one of my favorite cheap thrills, for example, or smelling a richly-perfumed flower) into a collection of little things, into bigger things, into a happier life.

Or as someone else put it: happiness is a habit. Just as you trained for tri, you can train for happiness. You know how to train (that is something for which to be grateful right there!), and can tap into that wealth of knowledge to train yourself to find the small happinesses in your everyday life.

Great advice!

I am a big fan of Louise Hay and per her advice I do positive affirmations before I get out of bed. I think of all the wonderful things that I have in my life that I might otherwise take for granted and I realize that what I have is much more important than what I dont have.

[ginny]

Hi - I am sorry for your current sadness. I have been there too. Fairly recently (well, it seems recent, but it was over 2 years ago now), when I went through a very tough time, I reinstated something my mother taught me when my father died. I will tell you what it is, and it is sort of my "magic bullet" but first, let me tell you how depressed I was. I would 'leak' tears all the way into work (and I lived 37 miles from town so the drive was pretty long). I would randomly burst into inconsolable crying and have to go hide in my car or in the cold room (I'm a scientist) or wherever until I could get myself under control. I thought at times that I would never be happy again.

My mom told me long ago what has pulled her out of depression in the past (it's pretty similar to the gratitude journal), but whenever you look at the the sky and see the blue of an amazing day or even the clouds of an overcast day... to smile. Force yourself to smile. At the same time, I thought about what I had to be grateful for. Now, when I am sad or depressed, I automatically look up. I notice the sky. I take a deep breath, and I thank the universe for the things that are good in my life. And, most importantly, I smile. Smiling felt more like grimacing for a while, but when we smile, we trigger muscles and neurons and our brains 'remember' happiness. By smiling, we begin to actually feel happier.

I know it's cheesy, but it works for me. Maybe it will work for you too.

[Selkie]

Tri - I'm sorry to hear about your sadness and I hope things turn around for you soon. Lots of good advice here, so there isn't much wisdom I can add other than to say that everything is temporary. In six months, who knows what will be happening in your life (something wonderful, perhaps)? Sending you lots of good karma.

[malkin]

Hang in there.

You're in Bogota? Like Columbia?