Every day there is something to feel said or bad about. Someone kills themselves. Someone kills someone else. Or maybe no one kills anyone but there is a mood in your heart or out on the street that feels like someone did.
In this world, where news and informations are instantly available to us at any time of day, it’s easy to get bummed out. I used to tell my daughter when she was a teenager who liked horror movies, I can get bummed out all by myself, I don’t need any help 🙂
The truth is that this world can be a disturbing place. The beauty and the heartache can be so tangled together that we feel a bit strangled by it. Some days I think my paintings suck. Some days I think I’ve eaten too much sugar or drunk too much wine or I didn’t go for that walk I should have. Some days I just do not inspire myself.
And then there are other days. Days when I’m stuck in traffic but I happen to look out the window and notice tall grass in the ditch blowing in the breeze and the delicate willow leaves rustling and I feel happy and content for no reason at all, except that I am alive. The young woman in the coffee shop notices and comments on the palo santo essential oils I am wearing and I feel a small sense of connection and pleasure. Happiness can be simple.
In all those instances, the day is just unfolding but my thoughts are simply reactions to what is going on in the outer world around me or maybe even to some internal mood that has visited me for reasons unknown. Sometime there is not a huge amount of awareness or intention in our reactions. That’s kind of how we live our lives mostly.
But we do have a choice, mostly we don’t make that choice. We go with habit. We could interrupt the cycle of thoughts, we could unplug ourselves. We could just be present with our eyes and our ears and our breath. We could refresh ourselves in the natural world of breezes and plants, with our feet on the ground.
We could think the opposite thought of the unhappy one that’s just inserted itself into our heads. We could reach for the best thought we can manage. We often have more options than we think. To be clear, in light of recent happenings, I am not suggesting this in cases of serious mental health issues, but for many of us it is.
It is human to feel sad or bad sometimes. We are not a monotone of moods but we are more powerful and full of choices than we usually imagine. Sometimes it is sheer laziness that keeps me from making the wholesome choice. Sometimes it is the momentum of habit and sometimes it is the weight of inertia.
Last week when I was in a vitamin shop, the young woman said to me, “you are a therapist.” I didn’t really understand her comment so I was silent. Then she said, “you help people.” I mumbled something. But it got me thinking afterwards. We are all therapists to each other, sometimes without knowing. A smile, a few words, can make a difference. On our good days we are all helpers and on the really tangled days we are the “helped”.
ps, this painting will be up on the website soon. size = 16″x16″
