Cultivate the other
I’ve been working on mind control lately and the reason why is I have tendencies. The one that had me in its grip middle of last year is that my economic future was solely relying on one thing and without that one thing, I would lose everything. This sort of catastrophic thinking comes naturally to me as it goes hand in glove with my type of anxiety. Ruled by the thought that builds on the thought that builds on the thought, I can make an empire out of a mudpie and tear it down just as quickly.
My therapist thought it might be a good idea to put me on drugs but I’m anti-prescription-drug even if it would keep my demons at bay. I sort of like demons that force me to take action. I don’t like sitting around worrying until I am in the fetal position, but I do like thinking or believing that I can reframe the question. What if suddenly becomes so what – which has a mighty feeling to a peon who is just trying to be.
Someone said to me the other day that I put myself in precarious positions. Another friend responded, “Tell us something we don’t know.”
In yoga, the teacher said when we are going down a negative path in our minds, cultivate the other and by example we had all come in shivering from the cold damp weather that cut through our bones and she had us do opening poses – lead with the heart, fly, open those hips in wild thing, and look up, not down.
If every day is a trial by fire to stay the course, to work towards the light, then the opposite would be to turn down the demon voices and cancel them out with a pill – “Anathema,” she says – sing me no lullabies, I want to hear the life in your lyrics, the pain in your licks, the wail in your blow and in turn I will work towards flipping the coin as much as I can.