There are many days that for one reason or another, I wake up somewhere in my sleep cycle where I am not meant to, and the result is a staggering, drooling idiot who can’t remember how to make coffee. S and I have a code name for these days: “Hammer People”. Implied in this phrase is the fact that, like elves or ninjas, there is a clandestine group of villains that visit us during the night and beat us with hammers. These are hammers of the mental variety, obviously, or else we would wake up during their attack. Duh.
I’m sure you have had a similar group visit you from time to time.
If the only outcome from being attacked by the hammer people was that we became temporarily dopey, that would be fine. Unfortunately though, sometimes the hammer people can set the tone for my day if I let them. In addition to the general anesthesia that they bring, they can also pump a ton of cranky into my veins which, believe me, is no good for me or anybody around me.
My less-than-optimal mental states, I have learned, have everything to do with projecting into the future or dwelling in the past, as we’ve spoken about many times here before. When I wake up from a hammer attack, I am particularly vulnerable (see drooling idiot sentence above). I’m both dopey and sort of neutral, which means my mind is free to push me around and start projecting images about how bad my day is going to be or how bad yesterday or a day ten years ago was. I am like a mental marionette, subject to the whims of my overactive imagination that dances me further and further from the present.
My only recourse is to take notice of my “strings” and cut them, one by one, by returning to my body, noticing my breath, and being mindful of all the sensations I’m feeling in the present. How does the floor feel under my feet? Am I warm or cold? Can I feel my breath rise and fall? What noises can I hear? Do I have any soreness or other sensations? By asking these questions, I bring my mind back, and back, and back to the body, until I’m in the present again and I have stopped projecting myself into false futures and distant pasts.
Most of you know that I have a morning routine that includes meditation on different things and a clarifying of my intentions for the day. The problem with days where, upon waking, I immediately get thrown into the spin cycle of time, is that they will often preoccupy me to the point where I will skip the rest of my routine and just fling myself into my day, having not prepared myself at all for engaging with anyone. I don’t think that I have to tell you that these days are never my best. Anytime I set myself up for that much vulnerability, and by that I mean the negative sort, I’m in trouble.
It’s heartening to know that there’s a way to back out of crankiness, though. Even if I throw myself into my day without having an intention of mindfulness, I can usually pull myself back from the edge if I can diagnose the problem and begin treatment. It’s another one of those things that is so simple, but so hard to remember for some reason. Perhaps it’s because when I’m all wound up, my mind is rebelling against any kind of quiet or reflective activity. Once it starts racing, it doesn’t want to stop. Also, speed can be fun for awhile…until the wheels come off, that is.
Better a judicious application of the braking system that slows things down and brings me back to mindfulness, I think. Or else the hammer people are in danger of winning…and nobody wants that.
1 comments:
beautifull
cut,cut, and cut them
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