I’ve been busy and traveling and unfortunately neglecting my journal for a couple of weeks. The old narrator is back. The voice in there that tells me how bad everything is. I just noticed it yesterday as I was having a massage on the beach. I know, first world struggles, right?
The narrator was telling me how I could get an aneurism from the massage. Then it moved onto outlandish theories about earthquakes and tsunamis which it tried to convince me were not so outlandish here on the Indonesian island of Lombok. This morning there were tremors so yes, it’s not inconceivable, but I probably didn’t need to think about it. What will be, will be.
I call this kind of ruminating Fearful Imaginings. I don’t know if I coined that term or not but it fits. The inner narrator can come up with all kinds of head-fuckery but imagining all the worst-case scenarios has got to be the worst of it. (I think there’s a game called Worst Case Scenarios?) actually I think the worst is the inner voice that tells us how rubbish we are but imagining how the plane will crash, how the weather will turn, whatever the worst is..Is just so annoying and weird!
And at its worst when for some sick, strange reason we imagine the worst happening to those we love. Why on earth do we do that? It feels like mental illness but I don’t think it is. It feels so damaging, picturing our loved ones in an accident or worse, especially for those of us who believe that we create our lives through our words and thoughts.
so I’m back to my journal tomorrow (and my Rhodiola) because I can’t stand pushing down the scary thoughts anymore. It’s boring. If shit is going to go down worrying about it before hand isn’t going to help. And it spoils the view.
That place you described is pretty much where I’ve been for at least 35 years. It feels like masochism. To some extent modern anxiety is explained by natural selection (the ancient people that left the cave to roam free were eaten by lions), but this shit it so extreme it isn’t actually living. It’s just jamming your nail into the most tender spots and saying ‘ooh yes, that really does hurt’. What’s the point? It obliterates the now with its sickeningly terrifying imagery and consequent actual bodily suffering. Frankly, the lions would be preferable – once and done. You may finally have convinced me to find time to journal if that really keeps this fuckery at bay. I wish you peace with all my heart. XX
I’ve experienced the peace first hand and why I allow life to get busy enough for me to forsake journaling, even on vacation, is testament to how self destructive humans can be. It’s the absolute only thing that I’ve found works and I’m up earlier this morning to do it. 💕
Do you have a structure you follow for journalling (or did you use one when you were a beginner), or is it pretty much just a brain-dump? Do you re-read it, or is it a purge and burn?
It’s always been a brain dump mostly. Julia Cameron says this in The Artists Way. Sometimes I have used prompts. There are a few good books in the library. Tbh I used Gabby Bernstein’s May Cause Miracles when I was at my lowest when I worked at the Nightmare Job. It’s based on A Course in Miracles. It has prompts to remind yourself during the day that you are heading in the right direction. I found two mantras very helpful. I am exactly where I need to be now. I am loved and I am love. And By doing all I can with all I have the inspiration and insight to achieve my intentions will flow.
I use both or to fill in gaps when I can’t write anything. The real trick is to write 3 pages. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had breakthroughs while writing that last couple of lines. Be assured though that the first few weeks of journaling can feel like toxic waste being pumped out.
Actually thinking of Gabby Bernstein she has some great books and videos. On YouTube etc.
I’ve burned a couple but mostly if anyone finds them after I die it will be a case of “who knew that was all going on in her head” 😱
I wonder too if it’s more than this. I was just thinking on the loo 😬 I wonder if the things we think; the accidents we conjure, the illnesses that lurk, the cruel people that don’t really exist… I wonder if the fearful imaginings are a product too of what we think on some level that we think we ‘deserve’. Other people get babies and I don’t, other people’s kids live and grow up… does that make any sense? It was a bathroom musing after all 😉
Hmm. I can certainly say that my dark thoughts are partly a function of being aware of how truly evil human behaviour can be. I saw dark things early in life, and the awareness I was given of dark things that had happened to others close to me occurred perhaps so early in life that it shaped how the sapling of my mind grew. Reading the news is mind-death to me, I seem to have little resistance to the most horrible things playing on repeat. Hence my saying it feels like masochism…except I truly don’t love it at all. I think, in short, that my dark thoughts are an expression of feeling fundamentally unsafe early in life, and reaping the consequences now. I’m not sure about desserts, I think it’s more about familiarity.
Wow yes. Our view of the world is everything. I see my husband’s view and sometimes I’m like “oh take your rose coloured blinkers off for five seconds” but then he’s far happier that just about anyone I know. He had the idyllic childhood lucky bugger. But it’s ‘never too late to have a happy childhood’ as the book title suggests. Darling, next time we’re together for a day I want you to tell me about the darkness you saw. Let me help with it.