This is NOT the blog post I intended to write today. I had other plans – as I often do – for my blog. Then life happened and I can either keep it pent up or I can write about it. I’ve found it’s better for my mental health, and the general well-being of those around me, if I write about it.
Short and sweet, life threw me a curveball. No need to go into the gory details – maybe later. But I got blindsided with a ball straight to the back of the head. And wow does it smart.
I tried pretending both a) The ball never hit me (ball? what ball?) or b) It didn’t hurt like he&* when it made contact. I should know better, of course – but hey – avoiding pain is what we humans do.
So then I decided to “feel the pain” because that’s where the lesson is, right? Except that “feeling the pain” threatened to overtake me. I started thinking about the pain ALL THE TIME. Not a valuable solution – at least not to me.
Then I remembered Gratitude.
And just to be clear – I am not one of those consistently serene spiritual people who remembers to pull out the tools that might actually help right away. Apparently I like to struggle with my own avoidance tactics first – which of course never succeed at doing anything but prolonging the problem.
Anyway – back to Gratitude (which, you may notice, is part of my Blueprint For Escaping Mediocrity). So, after doing battle with the pain of the blow and making ZERO headway, I decided to take my own advice and give being grateful a try. First I tried just thinking of a few things….my family…my health…my home…but that didn’t help very much. I REALLY wanted to pain to abate, so I decided to step up the game. Every single time I thought about how I hurt (every other minute sometimes), I countered with something I was grateful for.
The list got interesting. The color of the sky, my son’s laugh, ruby red begonias, cold water to drink, a vacuum cleaner with a clean bag already in…ANYTHING that made me feel just a tiny bit better than thinking about my painful wound. And I think that’s the secret really. Just consistently feeling a TINY bit better combined with refocusing my mind for a split second on something else.
Am I all better? Sometimes. It takes a long time for a serious blow to heal – which means I have to tap another one of my weaker skills – Patience. Will I make it? Absolutely. I’m not one to stay down permanently.
Someday I hope to be highly evolved enough that I don’t have to go through these struggles and these lessons over and over. Until then, I just keep re-learning the best ones over and over again. I’m pinning my hopes on the fact that they will put me further along the road to escaping mediocrity.
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