Fear - Controlling our mind and finding peace

I wrote an earlier post today mostly for myself but tonight I thought I needed to write about fear.  Life in the last few days has been pretty dramatic for all of us.  I know that when they cancel big sports events that most sports fans must believe that the world is coming to an end.  Have they every really done before? March madness might end up being July madness if we are lucky.

Our ability to adapt is key to remaining calm and realizing that we are okay at this moment.  I thought about whether to go and stock up on food today but the idea of seeing the madness at the store felt too stressful.  I have been fasting or eating mostly salads for a couple years now so I not sure what I would actually buy.  I do have an ample supply of nuts so I will survive. 

We cannot know the future so we have to just focus again on the idea that we are okay at this moment. Since social distancing is my specialty that isn't too fearful.  What is fearful is entertaining myself if we do end up on lock down for weeks.

I am not saying I am not scared because I am.  I spent most of yesterday thinking about how this is going to effect the economy.  I was having flashbacks of recession and my depression and how stuck I felt for years.  How I had no money to even go to the doctor or run my heat or air. I lived on nothing and felt stuck and terrified for long time. All these thoughts made me think "I can't go through that again".

When I woke up this morning I had to tell myself that this is not the same situation and I am not the person I was back then.  The fear I felt was the past and doesn't have anything to do with today. I am a whole person this time and not dealing with grief and menopause.  I have worked hard to become a different person and I will face whatever is coming with as much courage as possible.

This since of dread feels familiar to me. Where I live we prepare for hurricanes pretty regularly and for weeks we feel possible destruction coming our way.  The news talks about it 24 hours and you try to go through your day without thinking we could really be wiped out this time next week. It is stress in advance of disaster. It just hangs over you and you just try to stay busy.

I decided today I am going to make a list of the projects that I have been wanting to do around the house.  Just in case we end up in a quarantine situation. I going to pretend that I have been given some extra time off for spring break. Right now my company hasn't even acknowledged that we might have a problem so I am on the sales floor Monday morning.

I have faith that we will adjust and though we might have to face hard times we can make it. What choice do have?  We do have a choice not to suffer now by letting our mind create all kinds of future disasters.  We can stop the movie in our mind now and establish a strong center to face whatever comes our way.

Uncertainty - The small things - Courage

My mind has been all over the place since the storm.  It feels like with the recent tragedies one after another that the world is uncertain place.  Life has always been uncertain we just to choose to live in denial so we can get up every morning and pretend nothing bad will happen to us.

We do everything to give ourselves what we hope is an edge over the next guy. We take care of ourselves, eat right prescribe to a vast array of spiritual paths in hopes that this will keep us from suffering like the people we hear about on the news. Maybe our plans or spiritual faith gives us an edge but in my experience few of us get through life without be touched by tragedy.

I am not all doom and gloom because I think the worst part of the scenario is the worrying we do in advance.  The stress of thinking about how to protect ourselves from basically the unknown.  I did that for many years and the things I worried about most didn't happen but sometimes worse things happened stuff our never imagined did.

Can we prevent tragedy?  We can stop living and lock ourselves inside our homes, as long as it isn't a house in a flood zone and watch our lives go by. We can live in constant fear and ruin every minute of every day just waiting for the end of our happiness.  Oh wait it already ended when the worry began.

Nothing stays the same forever. The things we love and the things we hate will pass at some point.  The things we take for granted today may disappear tomorrow.  The only thing we can do is try to notice today the moments we have now.  Soak it all in and not get lost preparing for tomorrow.

We never know what small joys we may never experience again. Recently the Sonic up the street closed suddenly.  They boarded every window and put a big for sale sign in the yard. It made me think of all the times we took my friend with Parkinsons there after dinner to have a hot fudge sundae.  We are always trying to fatten her up at 90 lbs it isn't easily.  She loved it.  I was thinking how that will never happen again.  Oh we will go somewhere else but it still feels like a small loss.

Sure we will adapt but those moments are gone and will not be repeated. We take it all for granted because we have to or the uncertainty would make us nuts. I think we can be at peace regardless of the uncertainty. We can not get too attached to the way we think things will be or should be.

We we can use whatever spiritual path we have chosen to gather ourselves every day to face the day whatever it brings.  We can see the small gifts we are given.  We can accept that we don't know what is in the minds of others and how they might be suffering.  We can extend compassion to the people we meet everyday instead of getting lost in our own mind and we can extend compassion to ourselves when we don't think we measure up.

I have been sentimental and weary this past month but it has made me appreciate what have learned on my own spiritual path.  I do understand loss and hope that everyone affected by these events will find the courage to get up every day and go on. 

Sitting on the Beach - Catching our breath

I love Saturdays at the shop it is quiet here. I usually have a few customers come in but I don't have to deal with the usual work week interruptions.

I haven't had a chance to write and really didn't think I had anything that interesting to write about this week. But today I felt I needed to get some words out. Writing for me is like exercise I never really want to do it but I feel better once I do.

Life has been exhausting over the past few years and summoning the courage to keep moving has been really hard. I know I am not alone in this I see it all around me especially in my business. Those of us that are still here are catching our breath, surveying the damage and deciding what to do next.

When you are in crisis you can't think about anyone else. You feel like you are alone your ships going down and you preoccupied with bailing out the water with a paper cup. It is all you can do until either you drown or you reach shore.

We have reached the shore here in our business and are sitting here on the beach for a brief moment making decisions about our future. Our boat is still here but not too sea worthy at this point. Can it be fixed or do we need a new boat?

While we are making that decision we are steadily patching up the old boat and making plans to build a new one at the same time. I am not sure if it is a good idea to have divided energy but we are stubborn and a little sentimental and with the recent storm holding on to anything that feels familiar.

It is good to have a moment in the sunshine here on the beach. We know that we can't linger here too long and that is ok too.

We will never be the same and maybe that is the point of a storm. To root our complacency and bring courage we didn't know we had to the surface.

The Message - Alway being present

I got home late last night and turned on the TV just as Oprah said "I am so happy you made a decision to step out of the pain of the past and live in present with all it's possibilities".

This keeps popping up everywhere for me. She was interviewing a boy who 13 years ago had parents that chained him up in the closet for extended periods of time. This had been going on for years. He was six when his older sister ran away and told the police. A case worker went to the house and saw no evidence that anything was wrong.

The police officer that heard the sister's story felt there was too many details for the story not be true. He required the parents to come an pick the daughter up and while they were there talked to the boy. He covered for his dad until the officer sad you dad wants you to tell me everything and he did.

He is an adult now and seemed to be Ok despite the years of abuse. Another woman on the show saw that story 13 years ago as a child and had the courage to tell someone her step father was abusing her. She said his story saved her life.

The message for me was that it is possible to overcome anything. He will be changed forever but he has decided to not let the pain of his past control his life now.

Life can be really squirrely

There is a lot you can learn from nature. While waiting for my coffee to brew this morning I watched a squirrel doing crazy loops in the highest of the trees in my backyard. It was from a different angle than usual because I was inside instead of outside.

The tree is about three storeys high and from my perspective it looked like he had lost his mind. Then I noticed something huge in his mouth. I surmised that he was building a nest. I didn't know squirrels have nest but I guess that makes since. The first loop he pulled the branch off the limb. Second loop stripped off the foliage and the third picked another branch.

This all took place in the time it took for my coffee to brew. Before I got my coffee he had wrapped it up and headed down the tree. I thought about how when you are on the outside looking in it may appear that what your watching makes no sense at all. If you are not involved then it is easy to accept that is is none of your business.

What if you are involved? Then what? In the program they say what you think about me is none of my business. This always ticked me off because I thought if you are hurting me then it becomes my business. I had this saying regularly used against me when I was standing up for myself with a recovering alcoholic. It seemed it was used to avoid acknowledging what they were doing was hurting me. The relationship didn't survive.

What I learned was that I may not know the whole story but I do know the part that affects me. All I can do is have the courage to ask for what I need and accept the result. The other person can either address my concerns or not. It may seem at this point I am powerless but I can decide to stay in the relationship and accept things as they are or move on.

I am experiencing this now with my possible business partner. I am deciding what I need to feel secure and happy working together and I am addressing that with her. Lets face it it is a marriage and a long term commitment for us both. Today things are looking better as my mind starts to clear and I know what I want.

I know you are thinking all this from watching a squirrel. What can I say it is just how my squirrely mind works.