Happiness On Demand

Hello Reader,

Today's newsletter will be a bit different from the usual.

I've told you that I've been journaling my way out of depression, so today, I want to share one special journal entry with you.

My process is just to sit down and start writing. Most of the time, I have no clue what I'm going to write about.

This journal entry from late September is a perfect example of this process.

When I started to write, I had no idea what would come out, but the result that day was a breakthrough in my thinking.

What I wrote about was an analogy that perfectly captured what I'd been going through, and what I could do going forward.

You'll see what I mean when you read it. I hope you enjoy.

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September 29th, 2025

Today is the day when I put creative journaling to the test. As I start to write this, I have no idea what’s about to come out.

Furthermore, I feel like I have nothing to express.

And there it is.

As I wrote “nothing”, it hit me.

That’s what today, and some other days, have been feeling like lately. Nothing. While that’s not exactly how it is, “nothing” can be quite accurately used to describe how I’ve felt.

It’s like… I don’t know. Everything is good. I’m not depressed anymore. I can function normally and with quite a good amount of energy most of the time. Yet, I feel like something is missing. Like things are still not going the way I want them to go, despite having made so much progress over the last month.

In my latest journal entry I wrote about being still. I guess I must learn to be patient and trust that things are working out just fine “behind the scenes", just that I cannot see the results yet.

It’s funny this impatience. I’m so hard-wired to not believe the miracles that have happened.

Being impatient is at least partly social media’s fault, and I suspect most of social media users suffer from shortened attention spans and some form of impatience (that’s what those apps cause psychologically). And the beliefs that seem so hard-wired are my own doing, living 40-ish years “loving the drama” so to speak.

But what about the emptiness? What’s that about? It’s like there’s a hole in my soul longing to be filled. That’s honestly what it feels like. Like there’s a big hole in my life that must be filled if I want to be complete.

I can’t quite put my finger on it. It seems like it’s many things. Maybe the depression was like “an ice age” that covered parts of me in thick layers of ice…

(I paused here for a few minutes to think)

Ok, I just had to stop and google that. It started to make so much sense. Listen, here’s what happened during the ice age (this is not me, this is an AI summary):

Isostatic depression: The sheer weight of the ice pushed the crust downward. For example, parts of Canada were pressed hundreds of feet lower than they are today.

Glacial carving: As glaciers moved, they acted like bulldozers and sandpaper combined. They scraped away soil and rock, carved out valleys, and created features like the Great Lakes, fjords, and U-shaped valleys.

Rebound (still happening today): Once the ice melted, the land started “springing back up” — a process called isostatic rebound. In places like Scandinavia and Hudson Bay, the land is still rising by about half an inch per year.

Can you see how well the metaphor fits? The depression I experienced was “the ice age”.

Come on, it even has an effect called “isostatic DEPRESSION”. So it pushed down (depressed) parts of my mind and spirit. Carved out new features. Left gaps waiting to be filled.

Now I’m in the rebound-phase, where parts of me are springing back up and the gaps carved by the ice are starting to fill in.

Doesn’t that make so much sense?

Well, it does to me.

So now what I have to do is wait patiently for the “rebound”. I also can, and am in the process of, consciously filling the gaps carved by the ice.

It’s a chance to create anew parts of me.

This is just a thought at this moment, but what if… just what if my depression was a blessing in disguise in the sense, that it got rid of some things in me and gave me a chance to build something new?

That sounds like some real “dark night of the soul” type of s**t. Even though I hesitate to call depression “a blessing” (it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it), it could ultimately have been a part of the process in this dark night of the soul.

Remains to be seen.

In any case, all of this, again, has proven to be a valuable lesson.

One I wouldn’t have learned about if I didn’t pick up my laptop and started writing. And once again I feel ligher and clearer after writing this. There’s power in this type of journaling, no doubt. It even seems to “fine-tune” my intuition every time I do it.

Whatever the case, this is the end of an ice age and the beginning of something new.

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Until next time,

​Think happy thoughts!

​- Atte

P.S. If you want to try this type of journaling yourself, I've written about it in this previous newsletter . There's real power in creative expression. Give it a try and see how it works for you.

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