Having been led to expect a very soggy week ahead, it was an unexpected pleasure this morning to witness Mother Nature draw back her thick curtain.
Beginning the day with a blue sky is always a bonus.
One could proclaim that it was a good start to the week.
But let’s not get carried away!
It’s my experience that if one shows too much enthusiasm, Fate will intervene and drop the other shoe.
Right in the middle of your nice day.
There are those who would say you get what you think about, so expecting that other footwear to fall will inevitably make it happen.
Personally, I can’t really subscribe to this.
As a socially awkward misfit, I always had a lot of time to think and while many of my musings were pessimistic, when I was young I still hoped for good things.
In my mind I had a vision for myself, an ideal.
It was what I yearned for.
So, according to the theory, it should have arrived.
One can be seduced by quotes and theories.
There seems to be one for every situation these days.
The internet is full of them, just as bookstores used to offer shelf-loads of self-help.
Many were highly recommended and backed by celebrities.
A few, I even read.
One in particular, I remember, was about chronic pain. A well known person (so well known I have totally forgotten who it was) claimed that after reading the book, his chronic pain resolved.
So I read it, cover to cover.
Perhaps I was too much of a doubting Thomas.
There was one book, though, which did affect me.
Maybe in part because I selected it myself, without encouragement or expectation on someone else’s part.
It will seem ridiculous, but for many years, in therapy, I “acknowledged” improvements I did not feel from treatment, simply because I didn’t want to disappoint my therapist, or appear to be too negative.
Yes, really ridiculous. But that is why it was important that I selected this book myself. I was drawn into it on the first page because I could identify completely with what was written therein.
Strangely, I later discovered that the author and I had been born on the same day of the same year.
Which is curious, but not significant.
Eckhart Tolle is a well known “spiritual” teacher but importantly to me, he is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition.
“The Power of Now” showed me how to let go of bad memories. They still affected my life deeply, for absolutely no point and I could stop allowing it, just by letting go.
Which my therapists had been trying to help me with for years. It takes the right words and the right delivery.
Maybe I am just thick-headed, or perhaps it’s just that I also have a chemical imbalance that inclines me to depression.
Sometimes still, a combination of factors will bring me down and I’ll feel myself drawing close to the edge of that awful bottomless pit.
Then I take myself to a window. A sunny day is best, but there are few days when I do not find some delight to bring me back.
Nature keeps me grounded. getting out of London to live in the countryisde saved my sanity.
Best wishes, Pete.
Yes! I was in suburbia but I needed much more elbow room. I couldn’t cope with it anymore.
No photos, or mention, of the cats today so you must need an extra big hug, which I gladly send to you, along with wishes that the book about chronic pain starts to work at last. 💜🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗💜
Bless you, Peter! The dearly beloved darlings are fine. On Wed we go for the re-scheduled vet visit:)
You know what … those clouds really looks like a curtain being drawn back!
I’m an optimist – even more so when the skies are blue (and always think the best will happen), while Berto is, according to him, not a complete pessimist, but open to bad things that can happen … a good combination in our marriage I would say 😉.