I was in a dark mind tonight; a pitch-black place. Thinking of an escape, I took my thoughts down an old familiar road. Off I went.
Soft greens and yellows coming through the rays of sun casting down on the cliffs near the salty ocean. Like a filtered photograph the dancing tall grass had muted colors like a thin veil of cotton stretched over the camera lens. Fresh air and the sound of crashing waves. I'm reminded of this world. I'm reminded of my smallness. I'm reminded again, with a breath of fresh air, that I'm content in being humbled by our planet, the nature that surrounds, the atmosphere above and the universe that travels beyond comprehension. And with these thoughts I'm safe but from what am I safe from. Myself.
I am humbled by nature. I am thankful for the beauty within this planet. I am lucky to be here to see it, to feel it, to breath it, to hear it, to play with it, to love it like I do my family because it is my family - we are one. Living in a city and working in a rat race, I often forget about nature. I think this is the birth place of my darkness. There is nothing that is hurting me except myself; Except for my thoughts. I catastrophize events in my mind making them bigger than necessary but I can't stop. Inconsequential events, things that don't matter, words that people say that have no relevance towards my existence and yet I allow for their sound waves to bury itself underneath my skin. I want to stop this. But I can't stop. Unless... unless I think of nature. Unless I think of the beauty that surrounds us if we chose to open our eyes. The beauty that surrounds us exists if we chose to leave the bubble of humanity and become one with everything outside of ourselves. I don't know what's been eating away at my edges lately but it hasn't been feeling great. I keep trying to lean in and look inward so that I can better understand my thoughts but my vision is foggy. I question if I'm bothered by struggles that have spawned purely from within - the answer is yes it has to be. Doesn't it? I don't get to blame others anymore, I'm too old for that. But not too old because age is irrelevant to that statement. I'm too wise for that. The onus is on me to take responsibility for my feelings, my thoughts and my actions. For feelings turn to thoughts and thoughts turn into actions. My goal is now to have feelings of peace. If only I can turn my feelings into peace then I in return will be rewarded with peaceful thoughts and peaceful actions.
And maybe...just maybe, what's possible is to abruptly stop my negative thoughts from surfacing, and in general, living everyday life; To abruptly halt my constant state of contemptment. I'm conscious not to suppress my feelings but this idea is different from suppression. I hold on to such distrust for people around me and this inhibits me from developing relationships beyond surface level. I distrust people as my defense mechanism. I also don't allow myself to feel my feelings. I've recently noticed that if someone pays a compliment to me - I immediately deflect it back to them "Oh that's not true" "Oh you don't have to say that" "Well you're the same way" It's hard for me to feel my emotions. It's difficult to let my feelings settle into my bones. Like never letting dust settle on top of the ceiling fan blades. Don't let them sit inside of me, they don't belong here.
I'm going to make a generalization and say that a lot of humans don't really know how to feel their feelings. Personal analysis comes from observation regarding how many therapists are currently employed around the world. This idea is refreshing to realize, humans are united when it comes to not fully understanding feelings.
Trust has always been my most dominant trigger. When I feel like I'm being lied to, what do I do? I create a story in my head. I create a story about that person who is lying to me and I deflect my emotions either onto them or away from myself into another form such as writing. Within my story, my ego protects me by making them into a bad person. My ego does this as a survival instinct. Our ego is there to protect us from harm and it does this by producing chemicals in our brain that helps to protect us from danger. We have control over our ego and I'm finding for myself that it's powerful to reign-in my ego and push it down. It shouldn't have so much power. Our ego is not just what makes someone prideful, our ego also tells us that we are not worthy of love, accomplishment, success, etc. Our ego is always there and I think that the voice in our head is often the voice of our ego. Ego is good but only if it's maintained at a regulatory size.
So let's say that I think I'm being lied to and I immediately make up a story about the other person. I then start playing this scenario out in my head on loop, what is happening? I've created a false narrative in my head and this is my defense mechanism. Defense is turned on when triggers arise. An easy way of indicating a false narrative is when there is missing data. When I don't know everything there is to know about the situation - that's missing data. When I don't know everything there is to know about the other person in this story - that's missing data. When I don't know everything there is to know about myself - that's missing data. And missing data within a story is a conspiracy. Proper definition of conspire according to Merriam Webster is to plot and to contrive. To live a life based off of a conspiracy is misguided and potentially with purposelessness.
Confabulations are lies told honestly. Confabulations have an important role within our false narrative as well. When we believe our conspiracy about the situation that happened to us then we are believing a lie. We are welcoming confabulations into our lives. Isn't this such a horrific rabbit hole? Yes. Rabbit hole indeed and the only way of leading life away from this dark rabbit hole is to look inward, to understand our feelings and pay attention to our false narratives. We are our only answer for logic and reason.
To have the proper data and to make a clear and conscious decision, that's one thing, and to make associations and decisions about another human from misinformed confabulated stories in our heads, that's another. When we really pay close attention to our false narratives, they tell us a lot about ourselves. Our triggers lead us to truths hidden deep within our bones. When I think someone is lying to me and I'm triggered what is the honest feeling within these bones of mine? The feeling of abandonment.
Now what I feel represents me on the inside is a garden of dead rose bushes hissing in the winter wind underneath a twilight purple sky where the snow has tried to melt during the day but remains frozen now that the sun has vanished once again. That is what is inside. But what I dream of becoming is tall wild grass in the setting Summer sun off the coast near the Pacific where fresh paper-whites and wild roses dance in the breeze where the salty air is fresh to breath. This is my goal. This is where I hope to belong someday. I have the strength inside to get there, I know it. I believe in myself I can get there. I can withstand the shark teeth thorns on the rose bushes; the snow will melt away as it always does. And all I have to do is look inward and breathe.
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