Summertime, vacation time… Vacations are supposed to be the best time of the year (besides Christmas) – so our expectations are often over-dimensional: we want comfortable accommodation, inspiring new experiences, culinary delights and, of course, good weather. After all, we want to recover physically and recharge our batteries mentally.
That didn’t quite work out for me this year. And yet there is a surprising twist. But read for yourself! I’d love to take you with me on my journey.
- On the beach
- Forget vacation frustration
- Finding your inner center while collecting stones
- An extra dose of dopamine
- About the chicken god
- In contact with eternity
- Hunting and gathering
- Memories are awakened
- Mental strength through memory
On the beach
The fresh smell of salt water and seaweed is in the air. I can hear the waves breaking rhythmically on the beach. I trudge through wet sand, kneeling gravel and shells. The gusty wind makes the strands of my hair blow into the sand.
Face dancing. Again and again, my eyes linger on the different stones.
Flintstones, sandstones and limestones, rounded granite pebbles and – for the first time in my life – cow stones! Fascinated, I bend down and pick up the first one. I gently stroke its smooth surface. A white stone with gray spots breaking out of it because it seems to be made of two different types of rock. The salty seawater, the changing temperatures, the rubbing against other stones has brought these mysterious patterns to light over decades, centuries or longer. Again and again I bend down to pick up the most beautiful specimens of these spotted stones.
Forget vacation frustration
I forget that our vacation in Denmark this year really went down the drain weather-wise. 16 to 17 degrees and mostly constant rain. Fortunately, the WLAN in our vacation home worked. But this had painful consequences for me with my intensive cell phone use: I woke up at 4:30 this morning with a throbbing pain in my right hand that went all the way up my arm. Acute tendonitis. Sleep on? Impossible. How can vacation frustration get any worse? Due to my bipolar disorder, it’s a challenge for me to maintain my emotional balance anyway. On this day, I’m on the verge of depression.
Finding your inner center while collecting stones
The stones save me. I’ve left my family behind on a walk along the beach, dawdling after them. As if I were all alone in the world. Just me, the sea, the screeching seagulls, the stones at my feet. I bend down again and again, reach for one. Examine it from all sides. Put it back or put it in my jacket pocket. The aching hand is forgotten. As is my vacation frustration. No more brooding loops. I am totally focused. Mindfulness is combined with a flow state of maximum concentration and deep inner relaxation. A gentle, intense form of happiness is released. This walk on the beach with the collection of stones is the highlight of my vacation. I have found my inner center again. What’s more: a warm, yellow happiness flows through me.
An extra dose of dopamine
Professor Dr. Christian Elger, neurologist, explains why collecting can trigger such positive feelings: “When we collect, we activate our reward system in the brain. The so-called happiness hormone dopamine is released and gives us a special feeling of well-being.” My stone collecting has acted like a natural antidepressant, as a lack of dopamine can promote an oversized mental crash. The neurotransmitters in my brain are back in balance. And that’s not all: I got so much dopamine that I feel sustainably better, i.e. above “normal zero”, and I can preserve the memory of the wonderful feeling of happiness.
About the chicken god
Later I read that you can find many different types of stone on the beaches in Denmark, including amber, fossils, porphyry, flint, thunderbolts, chicken gods and fossilized sea urchins in addition to those I have identified.1
A few days later I discovered my first chicken god, a rare flint with a naturally formed hole as shown in the photo.
It seems to me like a greeting from the hereafter from my beloved friend B., who died last year at the age of 80 and for whom I wrote the text Freisein. She had a few chicken gods, so she must also have been a passionate stone collector. But we never talked about it. Incidentally, these stones are considered lucky charms in Europe. They are traditionally worn with a string around the neck as an amulet to protect against witches and ghosts or hung in barns to keep bad luck away from livestock. 2
At home in the vacation home, I wash the stones with hot water and soap, then rub them with a cloth soaked in disinfectant. We have two house cats at home, so who knows what can stick to a stone. I lovingly place the stones on a rack to dry. They are incredibly beautiful. I feel so richly gifted and blessed.
In contact with eternity
When I pick up one of these stones, it feels like I’m in contact with eternity. I wonder how old they are.
Biologist Dr. Frank Rudolph studied zoology and palaeontology in Kiel. In his book “How do I identify stones on the beach?” he reveals: “Beach stones don’t all look the same. There are red, yellow and green, striped and spotted, light and heavy. They come from all Scandinavian countries; some are ‘only’ a few million years old, some are over two billion years old.”3
Millions of years, two billion? Yes, that’s really close to the word eternity. An incredible period of time compared to a single human life and to human existence in general, when you consider that the oldest finds of Homo sapiens are around 300,000 years old, according to one study. And even early humans, with their oldest representatives such as Homo rudolfensis (2.5 to 1.9 million years ago) and Homo habilis (2.1 to 1.5 million years ago), seem only a stone’s throw away in the history of the earth compared to my treasures, which are up to two billion years old. 4
Hunting and gathering
Could it be that I am following a primal human instinct when I gather? In the Palaeolithic Age, we were all hunter-gatherers. This began around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until around 10,000 BC. 5
Okay, my stones are of course unsuitable as food, but I’m not alone in Germany with my passion for collecting: In a representative study conducted by Deutsche Bahn together with yougove in 2017, it was found that more than half of Germans (59%) collect stones. The reason for this was also asked. The result: 26 percent of those who collected said that it made them happy, and among 18-24 year olds the figure was as high as 37 percent.
Memories are awakened
At some point I remember that I have already collected stones in this dreamy and exhilarating way. They were my salvation. That was 17 years ago, also during a vacation in Denmark. In my early 30s, a severe burnout catapulted me out of my job. I experienced deep depression and withdrew completely into my inner self. Back then, we were still childless and went to the seaside for a few days with my husband’s family. I didn’t like talking or playing board games. It wasn’t until I was by the sea, collecting stones, that I felt alive again.
In the evenings, I remember having the same feelings as a child while collecting shells. Maybe I was five years old when I went barefoot to the beach in the south of France with a camping friend, dangling plastic buckets. We walked alone for hours, discovering the most beautiful shells. We couldn’t find our way back, but we still weren’t afraid. After all, the sun was shining in the bright blue sky, there were two of us and we were carrying the most wonderful treasures in our buckets. Happiness danced in our hearts.
At some point, a helpful woman approached us and accompanied us back to the campsite. Did I get in trouble from my parents? I can’t remember – the memory of searching for shells together on the beach is so big, bright and warm. It outshines all other forgotten memories of that summer.
Mental strength through memory
I am sure that my lucky stone hunt on the Danish seashore this year will become a similarly precious, golden memory that I will carry with me forever. Which I will consciously bring out when I want to strengthen my mental health. And which can easily outshine some of the other impressions of this rainy vacation.
The surf
Stones at my feet
Sun in my heart
- https://www.dantravel.de/reisemagazin/naturerlebnisse/faszination-strandsteine/ (accessed July 24, 2024) ↩︎
- https://esmark.de/huehnergoetter/ (accessed July 24, 2024) ↩︎
- https://www.wachholtz-verlag.de/Sachbuch-Literatur/Wie-bestimme-ich-Steine-am-Strand.html (accessed July 24, 2024) ↩︎
- https://www.ardalpha.de/wissen/geschichte/urzeit/homo-sapiens-evolution-geschichte-moderner-mensch-102.html (accessed July 24, 2024) ↩︎
- Jürgen Richter: Paleolithic Age.
The path of early humans from Africa to the center of Europe.
Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2018, p. 7, quoted from
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altsteinzeit (accessed July 24, 2024) ↩︎
About the author
Nora Hille was born in 1975, is happily married and has two children. She studied history, literature and media studies, worked in communications/public relations for 12 years and has now retired for health reasons. Today she writes articles on the topics of mental health and mental illness as a sufferer and experience expert. She also writes literary essays, poems (preferably haikus) and short prose. She regularly publishes her mental health column here at FemalExperts Magazine and is Editor of eXperimenta - the magazine for literature, art and society. Anti-stigma work is close to her heart: she is an encourager at Mutmachleute e.V. and is committed to Anti-Stigma-Texts against the stigmatization (exclusion) of the mentally ill in our society for more togetherness, tolerance and equality. In autumn 2023 her book "When Light Defeats Darkness" will be published by Palomaa Publishing. A book of encouragement about how to live a good and rich life despite bipolar illness - and the enormous challenge that this means every day for the inner balance of those affected.
