For When You Can't Stop Thinking Miserable Stuff
Another Positive Thinking Flop
I'm in a bit of a funk right now.
For the last three days, I've woken up with unease and anxiety. Dread is too intense, but not a happy bunny. Everything is going wrong. I swing between can't be arsed to do anything and flitting maniacally between mundane admin jobs to keep myself busy so I don't think about things.
Then I remember that this happens to me now and then and that it passes, and after a few days, I return to my usual self.
These days it passes much quicker because I've let go of the Positive Thinking thing. A typical internal dialogue would be around how ‘I needed to stop thinking like this, or it would just get worse’. The wind will change, and I'll be stuck like it forever.
Life has got so much easier since I decided to relax and let it go. Surrender to it happening and get on with something else.
I've given these moods a name - Ronald. Don't ask me why, and if you're called Ronald, please accept my apologies.
The real turning point was recognising that Ronald was visiting; he wasn't real and wasn't me. He's something or someone else that pops in to piss me off and present me with a challenge. If you've read The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, you will understand when I say that Ronald is my pain body.
By relaxing into what's happening, letting it go, and allowing Ronald to visit and stay, albeit I'm keeping an eye on him, he melts away much quicker.
I have a theory as to why. When you're focusing on trying to think positively and making a real effort to turn your feelings from negative to glorious, you're giving the whole experience even more focus and attention. As most of us now understand, what you focus on is where you end up. I still don’t have a happy place as a place I imagine being at. My happy place is where I actually am at any given moment.
My strategy today is to
Relax into what's happening as an observer.
Release the struggle and allow it to pass.
Laugh at what Ronald is up to.
Get out to a lively coffee shop for a cappuccino and time with my journal.
Have a narrow focus on activities. I pick a project and work on one aspect. Preferably something creative. By doing this, I can stop the panicked distraction activity of doing mindless, useless tasks in a fog of panic.
If you want to understand more about the Pain Body, Eckart Tolle's books The Power of Now and A New Earth explain it - but you need to stick with them until you get it. His podcast with Oprah, Eckart Tolle: Essential Teachings, is a gentler but longer route.
Not long now 😬
