“ No matter how present you are in life, there are still going to be highs and lows, shitty, unexpected turns and incredible, exciting ones. There’s going to be hardship, thete is going to be good luck. The crazy push and pull will never end. Not. Ever. And no matter what you do, you’re never going to reach the point where circumstances are all good all the time. The world just doesn’t work that way. - Let that shit go, Purewal and Petriw
We all know it. Some only see the sunny side of life. Some only see the shadows. Some get it; that there is a balance of highs and lows in every moment of eery day and they go with the flow of it. You can fight it, flee it, or free yourself from the constant drama and find your peaceful place within the storm until it finishes and you are dumped, unceremoniously, into a calm space where you can reflect on how you managed through it all. I think that is what old age is: A space and place to review one’s life and figure out the WHY of things and HOW you made it this far.
We can only control ourselves. Sometimes the storm comes right into your home, your private space, your inner space. It is then that your ability to cope is tested. It is then you live your words… walk your talk.
Although you might think you are doing great, your Ego is gathering up bits and pieces of the day to chat with you about, come night, when space and time of your rest becomes a talking point. I was always a worrier. I may not have shown it outside, but inside, oh the battles I have fought and won. Blogging helps me get some things sorted out before the quiet warfront begins. Oh, the trouble I have imagined that never came true and I thought, I guess, that going through the motion of all that MIGHT have been wore me out. I have learned to put reins on that wild horse imagination of mine. I can have someone dead in the ditch if I allowed my lizard brain to take hold. Is it just my creative mind or do other people go through these silent battles?
Once worry was important…back in caveman times when they needed to be prepared for battle in the next minute. Life as new to them. Life was new to itself. There were real dangers out there and running a preview of what might happen might save them.
Taking a moment to realize how ridiculously unnecessary worry is, now, when things are way more predictable, and we understand more of life and its worries and woes. The only dinosaur here are the old patterns of thinking and rating as if the sky truly were falling at this exact moment. Yes, things happen. Yes, a mangy rabid animal could be at your heels, but how likely is that? Nada.
Trying to replace anxious thoughts with a happy thought is only going to help for a few moments. The Ego is quick. It can switch lanes and head for a car crash in the next moment. In the end of the push and pull is still the violent car crash you are headed for. And then, it doesn’t happen and you are left with a feeling of gratitude (Oh, the reward) or a sense of doom that can last all the next day. The Serenity Prayer leads the pack here, as a self-soothing activity.
Some pray, some smudge, some take a sleeping pill til it is over, some slide into the sense of doom as if it were a dear friends’ arms. It is not any of this. Nothing outside of us can quell the speeding vehicle headed for destruction. The only brakes are those within.
When you realize you are worrying about something... consider what it will be in five minutes… what will it be in an hour, ten hours, a day, ten days…. Then realise, your worry does nothing for anyone except disrupt the ether.
I find that blogging sorts out my worries for me. Sometimes I go back and read some of the blogs to gain perspective again. I have lots I could worry about, for sure, but I refuse. It is not that I am in denial, I simply accept I am not in control of anything, anyone, but myself. I will get concerned when concern is needed, not waste my nervous energy on things that may not even happen. (i.e.: my youngest son leaving his wife and seven kids for deployment in the Ukraine War). Worry is anxiety with no place to go, I think. It is matter of waiting it out, staying Present, and focusing on that.
There will always be crises in our lives. We are all well-armed against it and our reactions would probably surprise us. I helped save a child in a frozen river one time and received a commendation from the RCMP for doing so. I shook later. I was telling a Japanese student that he should slow down on the gravel road and that there was a sharp turn ahead. And off the edge we went, he had the forethought to turn the wheel so we rolled across the brown of the hill instead of going quarter mile down the sharp incline. In the immediate, I stepped all over the seat-belted driver who was unconscious (thank God) as my oldest son helped get me out the side window which was the only way out. He got me down on the ground and all I was conscious of was the hawks screeching at us in warning that came too late. I was aware that one Japanese student was hanging out the hatchback. I knew the driver finally gained consciousness and my son helped him out. A farmer down in the valley came and got us down to his house where it was warm and called the ambulance. It took a while for the burning in my head to start. My front teeth hurt (later I learned I had split my front teeth up to the roots). And, my hands were dyed blue from the color of the roof interior. (Fear set off a chemical reaction of some kind.) I was rote. My thoughts were robotic. I was aware of putting one foot in front of the other. I was in a bubble of self-awareness and moving into shock from my head banging on the hand hold that was up top near my head. I had concussion. I never worried about the two other boys as my son was unhurt and able to get them through the emergency ward, by translating for them. Only later did I remember my last words as we began to roll,” oh, you *******!” If anything would have happened to me, he would have been left with that accusation. I think my son would not have translated that for him though. The boy who hung out the hatchback had back problems for some time. The driver and my son had no ill effects. There was no Ego in the moment. We had been kept safe, was my main memory. It was not the first time I had been kept safe, or my son’s either. (That is for another blog or two).
Today, I know I have been much protected and I had had o control over it. There is something greater than us that choreographs things and so no sense me worrying. It will be as it should.
That is a powerful thing to be able to say: It will be as it should! Remember that when worry tries to rain on your parade. I know I do.
©Carol Desjarlais 4.21
No comments:
Post a Comment