Saturday, September 8, 2012

Singing The Blues


Maybe it was because I had been singing a lot of bluesy songs, for whatever reason I had a bad case of the blues. The blues as in let’s have a pity party for one and sing a sad song. The blues as in life is terrible whoa is me. The blues, you know the mood that sneaks up on you to steal your joy.  Sometimes I like the blues, it’s an interesting mood to sing, sing not live.  I wasn’t in the mood for the blues though.  I had a busy week and just didn’t have time for it. Then it got worse, anxiety joined the party, pounding on the door demanding entrance into my life of bliss. What the fresh hell!

The anxiety was especially disconcerting because I believed, (for about a half a second), it’s omen of impending danger and doom.  Then in the pause of a breath Grace entered the fray and laid a calming hand on things.  Maybe something horrible was going to happen, sometimes it does, and like a lot of people I will occasionally get a sense of that before it happens. However, working my self into a state of frenzy was not going to help anyone or anything, least of all me.  The most useful thing I could do was get my inner life in order and rest in the calm center of my being where the real answers are.  If something horrible was coming, God forbid, I would handle it much better if I were calm and peaceful instead of having my knickers in a twist.  

Sounds like a plan right? The problem is that we have trained ourselves to give power to pain and celebrate emotional trash picking. We feel blue, anxious, worried, or just out of sorts and look for a hook to hang them on. I’m no different and added to that is the fact that sometimes I paddle the river of denial, so I did what works for me. I cleaned house, took a detox bath and carved out a long evening to sit in silence and check in with my life.  

In the space of calm I began to question how much power I give to my feelings and what their purpose was in my life.  It was an interesting conversation, a reminder of things I knew and forgotten, and would need to know in the weeks ahead.  The most important thing I learned (again) was that Spirit always speaks to us in a quiet voice without the strong emotional charge that our mind carries. The voice of God is calm and quiet. Negativity on the other hand is a raucous loudmouth. That’s the reason I stay away from it and its redheaded cousins, fear and doubt. They add nothing to my life. They’re like Chicken Little running though town screaming at the top of his lungs, “THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!” Not only will it make you crazy it makes it impossible to hear anything else, love for example. I always benefit more from the wisdom of love than I do from fear. That’s a stone cold fact you can count on.

When I checked in with my life I could find nothing that was actually wrong right here, right now and that’s all I was concerned about. And it’s all I needed to be concerned about. Right now is all we really have. You get that, right? If there had been something wrong, really and truly wrong I would have dealt with it. I would have gotten the help I needed and did what I needed to do to fix it.  The only problem in my life was me, take a minute and consider just how true that might be for you. Since I was apparently the problem I did what I needed to do for me.  I cut out sugar and caffeine for a week and got lots of fresh air and exercise. I started taking healthy doses of Vitamin C and D and Relora.  I learned a long time ago that what you put in your mind comes out in your life, so I filled my mind up with everything holy and good and it didn’t take long before things were back to normal. It’s either fear or love, baby. I’m choosing love, how about you?





               


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