Rainpour

When everything seems to be going just fine, we innately have an inexplicable fear that the wheel will turn to upturn it all.

We end up with nightmares that terrify us in our sleep and various thoughts that haunt us during the day.

We become clingy, vulnerable, insecure, and upset. Easily irritated by the slightest of things. We give importance to issues that shouldn’t matter and we are affected by every little detail around us.

We seek attention to alleviate the burden of the world we feel on our shoulders.

We desire to feel prioritised and important so we can regain part of that self-confidence that was drowned in those disturbing contemplations we create in our heads.

What we want is a person’s time – our person’s time – but that goes beyond the moments we simply spend together. It’s those instances when there are no other distractions around, and they devote their presence to you completely. That’s what we want. The other’s attention and energy. The feeling that for those (few) moments, you are their utmost priority, and there is nothing that can change that.

We want to feel special and loved, particularly at our most vulnerable state. When it starts to rain and it pours. When we view life under a dark cloud and can’t decipher that light at the end of the tunnel.

We want a hug that will wipe it all away.

A few soft works that speak to the heart.

A caring gaze that relights the spark in our eyes.

We want to feel the loving care we sort of lost along the way, that got pushed aside by the fear that if it’s too good, something bad is lingering in the shadows.

We need the confidence to believe that everything will truly be all right, because that is what we deserve; we’ve worked for it and we’ll get there. Eventually.

We want to trust that we’re not alone on that path there.

But most of all, we need to transform ourselves from using our energy to worry and moan, to believing, creating, trusting, healing, manifesting, and growing.

It’s the only way to stop the rain and bring back the sun.

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Caring or not

©Fleur Lind

“People lack sensitivity these days; they can’t get into another’s shoes”.

The voices from the adjacent table were distracting Meg’s thoughts.

Perhaps those insensitive were happier, though, she rebutted silently. They hardly care enough to be worried or stressed about anything.

The problem with being too sensitive is that often you sacrifice your own well-being out of fear of hurting the other’s feelings. You stay silent too long, and someday it all erupts uncontrollably. As a result, it pains both you and the person you’re trying to shield.

Perhaps not caring as much isn’t that bad.

But not for all.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Keep calm and sail on

It’s scary when everything seems to flow in order.

It feels like you’re waiting for the storm to arrive.

As if you’re in a canoe blissfully sailing calmly in a river, birds chirping all around, sun shining above, and a cool breeze complementing the ride, but all of a sudden you reach the end of a cliff and a steep waterfall awaits, where – like in movies – you have nowhere to hold on to and you end up falling off, screaming at the top of your lungs, before diving into the water below.

Yes, it might be an exaggeration, or an overreaction, or maybe both.

But nothing lasts forever – neither good nor bad times – and perhaps that is what is most terrifying when it’s all good.

There is not much you can do though, other than what most motivational speakers, life gurus and the like prompt you to: take each day as it comes. Live the moment and you’ll soon see that in creating and indulging in every instant, you build a life, one you’re happy and proud of, and which fulfills every essence of your being.

And that’s all that matters.

Don’t spook

We’ve been through a lot these past couple of years. Things we’d never even considered possible. Our way of life radically changed. Our routines, our habits, our ‘normality’. We’ve learned to expect nothing because everything can change from one minute to the next. And we’ve learned to anticipate the worst, because…well, we’ve seen it happen. We’ve seemingly lost hope but not the will to carry on.

But we’re spooked.

Because doubt and uncertainty have taken over us and our daily lives.

We spook too easy nowadays, precisely because we don’t know what to expect anymore.

We’ve been so used to the weird, the strange, the bad, the irregular, that when something ‘proper’ comes along, with no evident flaw, we’re scared. Afraid that like a bubble it will burst in our face and someone will be lurking around the corner ready to laugh.

We’re spooked because we know we deserve better but are too fearful of acknowledging that value in ourselves.

We’ve been through so much, yet we’ve survived it all.

Now we must show courage, in resisting the things we fear the most and walking straight through them. Good things are bound to happen. And perhaps everything we’re looking for is exactly on the other side of that paralysing fear.

Reaction to life

Stress is your body’s way of activating your flight-or-fight response to a perceived state of danger. It causes your senses to go on alert, often resulting in convulsive – irrational – reactions, heightened adrenaline, faster heartbeats, and increased breathing rates, as well as altering your food digestion and consequently your glucose levels. Stress has multiple effects on our body, many of which we are hardly aware of.

It’s easy to advise a person not to stress. What is not easy, is to actually follow that advice.

You may have heard/read it before from so many sources nowadays: stress is a fear reaction to life and life’s constant changes. To manage it, we need to equate stress with fear and then begin to eliminate fear from our lives. We need to wonder why are we in fact so afraid? Why do we so passively give our power away? William James had said that “the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over the other”. Because in essence, what causes our bpm to rise is in fact our own thoughts. If we replace the constricting and fearing thoughts we allow to invade our heads with positive and empowering affirmations – keeping it cool and focused – will actually allow us to reach what Louise Hay describes as “the totality of possibilities”. If you let your mind go beyond what you think is possible, you open yourself up to a myriad of options and potential.

What is interesting is the fact that many of us create the ideas we have about life by the time we are 5 years old. And from then on we live in the limitations created by our 5-year old consciousness, often stopping us from experiencing all that we could or desire. It is our own excuses, beliefs and limitations that obstruct our way. We have the option of either accepting them or overcoming them and moving beyond what we think is possible. Because it’s all in our head.

Anger is a significant form of stress.

One of the best advice on learning to alleviate it is what is termed as the “5-minute rule”. You should not spend more than 5 minutes stressing over something or being angry. Give yourself five timed minutes to vent, to moan, to scream, to let it all out. But afterwards, take a deep breath, and acknowledge that you cannot change what has already happened, so there is no value in wishing it were different.

Put simply: deal with it, and move on. Otherwise your just wasting your energy and time.

It’s not so easy to do. But it’s definitely worth a try. And if you keep at it, you’ll eventually get there.

It’s so simple

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

Let that sink in for a minute.

Think about it.

Really consider it.

Because the possibilities are endless.

If you didn’t allow your mind to block you, to obstruct you from moving outside your comfort zone, from doing something out of the ordinary, from taking a risk, a leap into the unknown, what would you truly be capable of?

If you’re not afraid, it’s usually not important, or not worth the risk.

If it scares you, do it. It’s the only way you’ll grow.

It’s as simple as that.

And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It is so simple.

We just make things complicated.

Prove me wrong

There are times you wish you were wrong. That the risk you took – seldom without overthinking – would pay off. That the impulsive leap you made would result in you landing softly somewhere. That what you feared would be the worst outcome would not be realised.

But overthinkers tend to have all possible scenarios considered. It’s not true, though, that they are shielded from pain because of this. It’s not true that they don’t get hurt because they saw it coming and you’re just proving them right. It’s just as hurtful – even more so – because you so desperately want to be wrong. You want that slight chance of everything defying your fears and turning out so much better. You desire that rarity of a happy ending.

Charles Bukowski had said that “sadness is caused by intelligence; the more you understand certain things, the more you wish you didn’t understand them”.

More often than not we try to escape life to run away from the reality we refuse to accept. We usually know what we ought to do, how we should act, how certain stories of our life will play out. But we obstinately deny it. We have difficulty in acknowledging the facts, because when our emotions are combating our rationale, we are guided by our feelings not our mind. It takes time, but the longer we resist, the harder it gets to let go.

And in the end, we are left with that incessant, perpetuating, yet constantly unanswered question: what if for once things turned out differently, contrary to all odds, to all predictions, to all expectations?

Visions unknown

@gio_quasirosso

He was haunted by his dreams at night. Or anytime he fell asleep really. He couldn’t find comfort in allowing himself to drift off. It scared him. Because of the visions that would appear. They weren’t just disturbing nightmares like he thought at first. They were truths, prophecies waiting to be fulfilled. And he was often helpless at preventing them because they occurred somewhere he knew nothing of, to people he could not even recognise. But the news always proved his dreams were more than that. And he was powerless against them.

When he met her, he was terrified.

He fell in love with her from the minute she laid eyes on him, and she smiled so brightly, probably because she realised that.

He kept falling deeper in love with her in every passing day. He wanting to give her the world, simply because she never asked for it. She was there, like a silent support pillar, despite knowing nothing of his torment.

But somehow, in her arms he could fall asleep; drift into a dreamless REM, and wake up without anguish, fear, abhor at what may occur during the day. She was his remedy, without knowing it; she was essential to him.

The day she was departing for a trip, he knew something was wrong. He could feel it pulsing in every minute pore of his body. There was something not right. He didn’t want to let her go. But she hugged him tightly, kissed him gently, and reassured him that everything was going to be fine. She had that positive vibe constantly glowing in her aura, and it made her sweeter, even more charming, and so difficult to resist. He wanted to believe her, even though his instinct reacted otherwise.

When she closed the door to the cab at the airport, he could feel his entire world shatter to pieces.

It is what it is

©MCD_Budapest

“You know that nothing can kill you more than your own thoughts, right?” He looked at her sharply. Once again she was drowning herself, choking up on makeshift scenarios. He needed to be harsh to snap her out of it.

“We make up disasters in our heads, because we build too much expectation and then become devastated when it’s not fulfilled. Just let things be”.

“My grandma once said: The key to happiness is letting each situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be”.

“So live the moments; it’s what composes life and it’s what you will remember”.

They say happiness doubles when shared. But what about sadness? Does that halve in magnitude? Because we tend to keep our misery bottled up, especially when we consider that everyone has problems of their own, many of which are more serious than ours.

But what if we choose to live those fleeting moments – those phantom pleasures that last only a bit – and we keep them to ourselves and only share them with a few close confidants?

What if when we return to reality, they seem like a dream? What if all we have to account for them are the photos we took but never uploaded anywhere? What if the only documented evidence of our fun was how it made us feel? How long will it last? And how will we make it endure for longer?

Why is it that whenever something good arrives, we have an innate fear that it will overturn, and that something bad will come to upset it all? Why do we allow ourselves to fall into that spiralling circle that messes up our minds? What if we just send out the optimism and positiveness we hope to receive; would that make fortune return to us?

Life is what it is. But that’s not always easy to accept. No matter what anyone tells us to do.

When tired gains a new meaning

We hear it being whispered, being shared in secret gatherings, being discussed among friends, being confessed to psychologists, being admitted during our most exasperated moments.

We’re tired.

We’re tired of this entire situation; this new reality that is dangerously becoming the new norm.

Life with a pandemic, a virus we still know little about. Life with social distancing, masks, restrictions, regulations, opening and closing of the economy, schools, social life.

We’re tired of the fear that is being spread together with the disinformation about it all.

We’re tired of the isolation and alienation this is causing.

We’re tired of the bellicose atmosphere resulting from everyone being on edge.

We’re tired of this being the only topic of conversation constantly and everywhere.

We’re tired that it is beyond our control and all we can do is hope.

But most of all we’re so tired of being tired of it all.

Also part of Your Daily Word Prompt

Inspired by Once Upon a Picture