Investigating Blues

I wasn’t feeling well for the first two weeks of April. It seems like there is a lot of that going around in my group of friends and acquaintances. Not sure why. As it was, my heart felt closed, I was battling a bout of heavy insecurity and the world weighed heavy on my shoulders. It scared me to think I could be that down when nothing really was that wrong. In hindsight, I see that the physical ailments most probably had a heavy impact on my emotional state. For all I know, it was the moon as well. But whatever the case, I think my emotional state needed tending to. I needed the crisis of faith to do some soul searching and to come up anew. I don’t feel 100 percent yet, but I do feel the tides have changed.

Last night I went out with a friend to a mixer. She and I bumped into a friend of mine and his male friend. My friend and his friend started talking and I instantly felt this pain in my heart.  I didn’t know what it was, but it was mired in insecurity. 

Later on, after much self chastising and judgment, I cultivated curiosity and neutrality and unpacked it. What lay there came out to be something like this: What if they start dating, get into a relationship and she’ll be one less single friend I have and I’ll feel even more lonely than I do now? What If I’m left behind? 

I know this sounds presumptuous, selfish and childlike. But it’s from my child self that this arose. The one who had experience with abandonment and being excluded. Shedding light on it is somewhat embarrassing, but also a little freeing. I was able to see it for what it was. This time I didn’t try to talk myself out of thinking this way as I had hours earlier. I just stayed with the emotion with acceptance. I just kept feeling. Eventually, I asked what was true.

What is true is that I’m capable of all types of love and I love deeply. This feeling was so mired in childhood fear that it couldn’t see love. But as an adult, I can choose to allow love to flow through me, lighting up the depths where my fear hid. Love for my friends, love for myself, love for the possibilities life had to offer. My friend finding love wasn’t a threat to me. My fear of her finding love was a threat to me. It kept us apart. It kept me from being authentic and vulnerable. I could cultivate love and draw more love into my life or I could covet fear and beget even more fear in my life. How did I want to live?

I think I’ll be playing matchmaker soon enough.

Mind Interrupted

I’m an overthinker. I can talk myself into or out of (more the latter) virtually anything. I will be on a way to an event and have second thoughts about going. I’ll be on a date and have a continuous internal debate on how, when and where it will end up. I’ve been known to sign up for a class on an impulse only to figure out a dozen reasons why I don’t want to or can’t go. I can talk myself into feeling too tired, too sad, too sore, or too bored. I’m not sure why, but it’s epidemic throughout my life. 

This week, there have been a few instances that have stood out to me in their dissonance with my usual routine. Times where I just went for it. In dance class, our instructor showed us a rather complicated move. Usually, I would wait for a few girls to go ahead of me before attempting it myself. This time, I went first. Before my mind had time to tell me I couldn’t or analyze each move. And I surprised myself. Next move, I tried the same thing and surprised myself again. In the following days, I attended a poetry reading downtown on the fringes of my normal weekday bedtime, jumped into cold water without a backwards glance and took child’s pose in yoga because I needed a break. Instead of agonizing, I just did.

Our minds have a way of making even the simplest of tasks more difficult. They mean well. They try to keep us safe. And because they do a pretty good job, we tend listen. The more attentively we listen, the drunker they get off their power. They tell us we can’t when our hearts know we can. They fool us into thinking we are smaller than we are. Something inside us cries out when we know they’re wrong and they waste vast amounts of energy to quell us. We end up feeling conflicted and drained. 

I know my brain is smart, but I believe my heart is wise. If I’m going to live this year with an open heart, I’m going to do more. Before my mind has time to interrupt.