Vibrant: How do you get your zest for life back?
Everyone wants to be full of life, but not everyone is? How is it that sometimes you can lose your zest for life, and how do you get your zest for life back? In this blog, you're going to get answers.
What is zest for life?
A zest for life means you have a desire to live and are in a good mood. You also view the world positively and are in good spirits[1]. You have absolutely no suicidal tendencies but look forward to the future because you expect all kinds of fun things to happen.
Resilience after setbacks
Of course, you may have had certain setbacks in your life that have caused you to take a break.
When problems are too big to solve mentally on your own, this can cause a great deal of mental stress , leaving you in need of help because you no longer have the resilience to work through them on your own. You may also experience lower self-confidence, feel that you’re worth less than other people, and feel as though you have absolutely no control over your own life. You may also notice this by feeling physically very tired.
Because your resilience is depleted, you may also suffer from depression, panic attacks, tension headaches, sleep problems, and anxiety. This happens because you worry a lot and because you want to meet other people’s expectations, but one of your concerns is that you simply can’t do so.
All those feelings can also cause you to lose your zest for life a bit. You can no longer find the motivation to do certain things in your daily life, you simply don't have the energy and interest for it anymore. For example, you may also find it difficult to get up from bed[2].
Your resilience then runs out, so to speak. So what can you do to regain your zest for life?
There are a number of ways to get your zest for life back.
Mindfulness and zest for life
Research shows, for example, that mindfulness can help people regain their zest for life when they are struggling with suicidal tendencies. It helped reduce suicidal thoughts and actually helped students regain more zest for life[3].
Protecting your sense of your ability and identity
Setbacks in your life are so annoying in part because they can negatively affect your self-image. You apparently could not do something and your confidence that you could do so may then have taken quite a hit.
It is then important to have resistance to that damage to your self-esteem, so that that setback does not make you less full of life[4].
One way to hold on to your zest for life is to repeat certain affirmations about yourself. This can be done, for example, with self-hypnosis. Depending on the problems that have made you less zest for life, you can be given certain suggestions or affirmations by a hypnotherapist. These can be suggestions such as:
"I can figure anything out."
"If something doesn't work out, I try again, but in a different way."
"I have perseverance."
These are just examples. You can get other affirmations that help you protect your sense of possibility and your identity.
Another way to do this is to focus more in your mind on what you can do, rather than on what you can’t.
Improve your chances
Another way to become more full of zest for life is to find ways to improve your chances of success. For example, developing yourself by reading books to gain specific knowledge can help.
Want more friendships, for example? Then books on how love works and how social relationships work can help you be better at being social.
Take a course to gain certain skills.
Get a dog to walk with and meet new people who also have dogs. Like the owners of the dogs who play with your dog at the park. Who knows what opportunities those people will bring back to you.
Improving your physical health by walking and eating healthy can also do a lot (source 4).
Having an interesting future
Another way to improve your zest for life is to have plans for your future. Ideas about how your life is going to be fun again help you become more life-enhancing. Having something to live for will ensure that you have more zest for life than if you don't actually have any goals in your life.
Here, hypnosis can support people by performing a progression. In this technique, the person does not remember the past as in regression. With progression, instead, you visualize a certain picture of the future and the steps you need to take from the moment of therapy to actually achieve it.
This helps people have a plan for their lives, restoring their zest for life (source 4).
What beliefs do you have?
In addition, you can also explore your beliefs about why life is—or can be—fun, and why life isn’t—or can’t be—fun (source 3). You can compare these beliefs, which can help you realize that life has so much to offer.
A hypnotherapist can find out and bring out these types of beliefs in you with a good conversation. Perhaps you have fun beliefs about why life can be fun that you have tucked away deep in your subconscious.
Activating Gratitude
One way to shift your focus from what is all not good about certain situations to what is good about certain situations is to express gratitude (source 4).
What can you be grateful for in life?
Remembering what you learned through an unpleasant situation and what you gained from it can still help you feel better through your setback.
For example, think about what you learned from your parents when it was not consciously their intention? For example, what did you not like from your parents, but what did you develop in terms of your skills as a result?
In this way, you can also look at a setback in your life. What have you developed through that situation that can be useful in your future life?
That's often something to be thankful for, after all.
Having a social life
Humans are social creatures and want to have a social life. Having a good relationship with friends and/or family can also help you regain your zest for life (source 4). So how do you make sure you can have a social life?
In the Netherlands, we are fortunate to have association life. You have sports associations, hiking associations, shooting associations, theater associations, chess associations et cetera. You can join such an association to get more in touch with other people. Who knows, that may be enough for you to feel more connected and who knows, nice new friendships may come from such a membership.
Hypnotherapy for more life satisfaction
As can be seen, with many tips for more zest for life, there are opportunities where hypnosis can help fuel your zest for life. Research also shows that hypnosis can help you improve your well-being.
This is done in part because hypnosis can help you improve your identity, self-image, and strengthen your mental strength[5].
Hypnosis helps, among other things, to regain your self-esteem and become more confident. Progression, for example, helps with that. But if there are certain situations in which you could be more confident, other techniques can also be used to boost your self-confidence. Like again, affirmations can be used that you can do something. But you can also get a guided visualization in which you confidently do something that you actually find very exciting.
Fears that reduce your zest for life can also be overcome with hypnosis. Depending on the fear, this can be done with visualizations in which you ridicule the fear or, for example, with regression where you go back to the first moment when that fear arose. Then you can do something with that moment to overcome the fear.
Bringing your inner child to the forefront can also be a great help in regaining your zest for life. Children are naturally sprightly, and that little sprightly child you once were is also still in your subconscious. You can talk to that in hypnosis. This can help you formulate your life goals, for example.
Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how it can help reignite your zest for life? Then join us for the free online masterclass.
Or sign up for a seminar or one of the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. It’s the perfect way to help yourself or others live life to the fullest (and it gives you a great goal to work toward 😉).
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