How my thoughts lie to me…or a day pulled from the ditch

Once again, the photos have nothing to do with the blog post. These are again from our latest cruise, arriving into  Cartagena, Colombia and our first sightseeing stop at the La Popa Monastery. 

Yesterday, I spent the morning (almost) finishing our taxes. I have spent many an hour doing them this year, the reason being that last year I somehow missed out on being organized. I say “somehow,” but I know exactly how.

Early last year, a few major things happened to people I love and it threw my world off kilter. Life felt out of my control and I had a hard time just trying to hold on to my calm and happiness. Anxiety ruled most days and nights and organizing paperwork was not high on my priority list. Actually, it wasn’t on it at all. I made sure I collected everything in a pile, but that was it.

And this year I am having to deal with the aftermath of it. Endless hours of organizing, entering data into the computer, etc.  I’ve almost got the beast tamed, but yesterday as I was working on our taxes, I realized how my thoughts were running away with my emotions.

By lunch time, my head was filled with thoughts like:

“You used to be the queen of organized and look at you now. You aren’t even good at that anymore. What are you really good at? Not being a housewife, not building a creative business, not painting. Not anything, really. Why can’t you shine at anything? What’s wrong with you? You are almost 50 and what do you have to show for it? You must be such a disappointment to those you love. Heck, you’re a disappointment to me!”

And so on. You get the idea.

Now that part of me that is separate from my thoughts and was able to stand back and observe them knew that these were lies, but even so I couldn’t stop them. Momentum can be a wonderful and terrible thing. It was like I was being run over by the negative thought train. My ego saw an opening and dove in with relish.

By the time Daniel got home from teaching, I was eating ice cream out of the container, which I have done no more than five times. Ever! I was a mess. I felt a total failure, and I knew I’d have to do something to stop this onslaught of negativity.

And here’s the really ridiculous part of it: nothing bad (nothing!) happened in real life. This whole thing happened only in my head. It amazes me - and I often think about - how powerful our thoughts are, but that’ll be for another blog post.

Often when this happens, I take a nap and that breaks the spell. Or I play with Winslow - pets are such masters at having fun, aren’t they? Yesterday, I turned on Pandora with 50’s Rock ’n’ Roll music. The first song that played? “It’s my party and I cry if I want to.” Really?!

Daniel suggested we go out, run a couple of errands, then see a movie (we go to the movies about once a year, so it was a big deal) and afterwards have some vietnamese food at our favorite little place.

It was perfect. We went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel and it was just what the pity party doctor ordered. It was a poignant story based on the writings of Stefan Zweig, whose novellas I had to read in school and just loved! It was beautifully filmed and it was funny. I laughed out loud throughout the whole movie and felt like seeing it again immediately. Click here to see the trailer.

That followed by vietnamese food and my day that could have completely landed in the ditch, ended on a high note.

I’m sure (I hope!!) I’m not the only one whose thoughts run away in undesirable directions from time to time. What are some of your secrets for turning around your energy?

P.S. Your comments on my last post really touched my heart. I am in the process of responding to each of you by e-mail. If you haven’t yet heard from me yet, you will!

With love and appreciation (and feeling positively positive today), I wish you a wonderful day!

❧ Silke