The Prophet of Doom and Other Stories.

The Prophet of Doom and Other Stories.

by | Jan 4, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD

The Prophet of Doom paid me a visit the other night.

I sometimes have advance notice, other times his visits are out of the blue. This was one of the latter. I was already in bed and I was unsettled. I had a lot of paperwork to sort out. My bank needed some documents from me to update their information, I needed to visit social security and I had to update my workbook at the local Jobsplus office. 

As I tried to sleep all I could think of was that I couldn’t do all of this. There was no way that I’d be able to get all of the paperwork sorted out. It was too much, impossible to find, I couldn’t do it. The bank would put my account on hold, I’d have no access to money, I wouldn’t be able to get all of the paperwork that social security needed for their records, I wouldn’t be able to stay here, I’d have to leave the country. 

It seemed like a fairly reasonable conclusion to come to. No paperwork, no access to my account, can’t access my money, have to leave. 

I was then wondering if I wanted to leave after all. Maybe this was telling me that I needed to leave. But how on earth was I supposed to leave with my children when they were settled here? How could I get our pets to the UK when I had no paperwork for them, no access to money because I wouldn’t be able to get the paperwork to them and there weren’t any flights to the UK at the moment, let alone ones that could take animals due to Brexit…..

Now, this particular train of thought was new to me. I haven’t been down this rabbit hole before and man, was it a deep one!

Then I noticed something, that voice, how my world was being spoken about. It was doom. All of it. The Prophet of Doom was with me. 

My mind was painting a grim picture, there was no hope. There was an endless list of problems that could never be solved as I was unable to get the paperwork sorted out. 

 My life was a disaster. All of it. 

At the time it felt like this was going to happen, 100%. This shit felt real. This was my future and there was nothing I could do about it, this was ‘The Truth’, in capitals. It was that serious. 

But….. noticing the voice of the Prophet of Doom let me pause for a moment to consider that perhaps, this was one perspective. Just one. Although it wasn’t a great perspective by a long way it would probably change by the morning. 

I’ve been on this journey of self discovery for a few years now. One of the best things I’ve noticed is that there are many versions of ‘The Truth’. There’s my truth and your truth and everyone else’s truth. My truth changes with my mood, the information I have at hand, my personal biases, my conditioning, what I have learned along the way, as does every other person’s on the planet. When insights pop up, they are my real ‘Truths’, at that time and it’s these that help to keep my feet on the ground instead of diving head first into believing the Prophet of Doom’s version of the truth forever more. 

Because, honestly, that version is crap.

I fell asleep and when I woke up the next morning, late, I found the one piece of paperwork that I needed and took it to the bank. They needed more, so I got more. I visited social security, picked up 2 very simple forms to fill in and went to meet a friend for coffee. By the 8th January (I need school to sign a form), I will have collected the rest of the paperwork and I’ll take it in to the bank, social security and Jobsplus. Easy, well this bit was, I have no idea how easy the rest will be. 

The thinking I’d had about it all was just that, thinking. It was anxious thinking that spiraled down into a world that doesn’t exist, except for in my mind. I could have tried positive thinking. I could have told myself that I could do it, that it was easy, that everything would be fine. Then I would have been arguing with my own thoughts and I don’t see the point in that.

The Prophet of Doom wasn’t giving me any accurate information about what would happen, so bringing in The Rae of Sunshine to shine her happy light on my thinking wouldn’t really help much. What was real about the whole sorry mess was what happened when I started sorting out the paperwork. The rest was my imagination. 

I’ve made a picture to illustrate it, hope you like it. I particularly like the Grim Cockroach Reaper. 

 

Prophet of Doom vs Reality vs Rae of Sunshine

We’re often tempted to change the thinking we have from negative to positive. All that does is to create more work for our minds. When we’re already feeling anxious and afraid, the last thing we need is to add to it. 

Anything we do to try to stop the thinking adds work, anything we try to do to change our thinking adds to it. 

The battle is taking place within our imagination. The positive thinking is no more real than the negative thinking. 

Our minds are incredibly good at settling themselves.

If it occurs to you to get up and do the washing up, great. You might get an idea to write it all down, have a hot chocolate and some toast. The Prophet of Doom might sound so convincing that  you”re drawn into his nightmare scenario for a lot of the night. On the other hand, you might give a big sigh, ignore it and go to sleep.

Whatever happens, this kind of thinking does eventually moves on when give up thinking about it, get distracted, or have an insight that seems so damned obvious you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it before.  

I can’t deny that I still get sidelined by the Prophet of Doom. He’s a bit of a sneaky bugger. What generally happens now is that I recognise it sooner. I can generally back off faster, I’m more able to let my mind settle. I don’t experience the same levels of anxiety and down times that I used to.

However, we all have our blind spots and some things are confusing and horrible and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. 

In Part 2 I’ll write about what’s going on when this happens.  

 

 

Photo by Catalin Pop on Unsplash

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Not Every Question has an Answer and That’s OK.

Not Every Question has an Answer and That’s OK.

by | Dec 30, 2020 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic

I love questions, but my love for questions and finding answers can lead me down a rabbit hole at times because not every question has an answer.  

I have some great conversations with my daughters. We go for walks, notice random things and questions come up. Our latest walk brought up such gems as ‘do moles have beds’, ‘do frogs hibernate?’ and ‘where do wasps go when it’s cold?’

This is where Google comes in really handy. 

We collect questions, and then search for the answers.

There are times that I wish that everything was so easy to figure out. As life isn’t as predictable as we’re led to believe, we often find ourselves navigating routes that we didn’t anticipate. Like when we leave a relationship, lose a job or when a pandemic hits. Times of great change can be incredibly uncomfortable. We can feel lost, scared, panicky, uncertain, foggy, anxious and overwhelmed. The transition from the unknown to the known can involve walking through an awful lot of unstable and rocky ground. We need to find our footing.

What can make it harder for us is wanting to have all of the answers and not realising that we can’t have them just yet. The more that we try to figure things out, the more painful and confused our mind can become.

 It’s worth remembering that we don’t always have all of the answers and we don’t need them, I mean, not every question has an answer – even Google can’t help us sometimes. When walking in new territory, the step we first take will dictate what the next one will be, and so on. We’re forging new pathways, ones that are suited to our own unique needs and abilities. We learn to navigate unchartered waters bit by bit, at your own pace. We can’t, and don’t need to know the full line-up, because it’s not there, yet. 

How much of a problem this is depends on your state of mind at any given moment. You might have noticed that when you’re calm, content or happy, you won’t be questioning as much. The world will seem an easier place to live in, in spite of your circumstances and ongoing events. You’re ok, yes? When we’re more emotionally level, the concerns we have when we’re stressed or down aren’t present. Or if they are, they’re not as urgent. Have you ever noticed this? 

When our emotional level dips, we see things differently. Fears creep in, we feel insecure and we need to know in order to feel safe again. So we question, and we question some more. We seek advice, we look for answers. The more we find out that we don’t have the answers the more insecure and unsafe we feel. We’re not really looking for answers, we’re looking to feel safe again, like we do when we’re not down. We want to feel ok again. 

Healthy research is good, finding out our options is good. We’ll naturally do these things when we’re feeling more balanced. We know when to stop too.

The superfluous questioning, the obsessive finding out, this is what can keep us in a stressed state for longer than we have to be. It can also stop us from taking action when we need to and it can distract us from what we should to be focusing on.

Learning to recognise the rabbit holes when we come across them can take a bit of practice. If you love finding things out as much as I do you’ll know that this struggle is real. It’s such a natural thing to do when I’m a good state of mind, or a not-so-good state of mind. When I start to feel the pull of questions, I start to ask myself ‘is this important?’ ‘Do I need to know this now?’ ‘Is this pulling me away from what I need to be doing?’ ‘Is this how I want to be spending my time?’ 

Surprisingly I’ve found that 9 times out of 10 I’m heading down a rabbit hole and as much as I love exploring, sometimes it’s time to hang up your boots for a while. 

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Trying to Figure it All Out

Trying to Figure it All Out

by | Dec 28, 2020 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic

As a former stress-head who is still prone to overthinking, I realised something recently…. I’m still trying to figure it all out. 

Flying around my mind are ideas of right and wrong. What to do for the best? Which is the best path to take? Where will it go? What’s going to happen? How will it work? How will I know? Should I do something else? So many questions flying around, and no answers. 

It’s a habit that comes and goes. It’s sneaked in again and I’ve only just started to notice it. That’s why I’m feeling stressed, why my brain feels tired, why my body is aching, why I have so little headspace to enjoy myself. My mind is whirring away, thinking of possibilities. It’s figuring out what I like and don’t like, and wondering how to solve the problems that have entered my life recently. It’s a heavy load to be carrying. 

So what can I do about it? Good question…

Therein lies the problem, how do I figure out how to stop trying to figure it all out? 

What I’ve seen, time and time again, is that once I’ve noticed something is going on, there’s very little I have to do. I notice it, that’s it. The more I engage with the issues that my mind throws up, the more real they become. The more I think about trying to solve the issues, the worse they get as more questions than answers will appear.

Trying to predict the future doesn’t tend to work well for us and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been wanting to know results before I start something. I haven’t wanted to waste time starting something that won’t work. I don’t want to put any emotional investment into something that isn’t going to go where I want it to. I want to know I’m safe before I relax and let myself feel. I’ve had a lot of conditions on how I want my life to be. I can understand wanting to know what an outcome will be, but I also understand that these are questions that don’t have answers yet. 

Granted, some things are predictable. If I push a glass off the table, most of the time it will break. However, if I begin a project, or start tiptoeing into a relationship, I have no idea where it will go, how it will change and evolve or where it will end up. 

Going back to my original dilemma, how do I figure out how to stop trying to figure it all out?

I don’t. 

I’ll notice when my mind is in a ‘figuring out’ mood, and I’ll see what I need to do from there. I’ll probably notice a tightness in my shoulders and jaw and hands, my mind will be racing around, I won’t be feeling too good. I’m probably spending more time thinking than doing. What’s going on in my mind won’t be reflecting what I’m doing, I’m effectively living in two different worlds, the real one where my body exists and the made up one where my mind is. That rarely works out well. 

I might want to stop what I’m doing and stretch my body to ease some of the tension out of it. I could take a few minutes out to do some deep breathing or do the washing up. I could dance, ignore what’s going on in my mind or keep doing what I’m doing regardless. There are probably 1001 things that I could do, but I won’t know any of them until they dawn on me at the time. 

As I won’t know the best thing for me until it happens, there’s no need for me to figure out what to do beforehand.

Less to figure out, less work on my overloaded mind. 

No planning in the world can change the randomness of what runs through my mind or how I’ll respond to it when it happens. I’m pretty sure it will be like every other pattern that’s popped up to be seen. I’ll notice it, I’ll fight it, I’ll argue with it. I’ll try to resolve it and then it will dawn on me to stop doing anything. I’ll relax my body and mind and this thought-storm of figuring it out will pass by. Just like every other thought and emotion does, as long as I don’t jump into it and try to control it.  Let it flow, instead of trying to stem the tide. 

I don’t know what life will look like if I stop trying to figure it all out, better I expect, it’s always better.  I’ll let you know when I find out. 

 

 Photo by Isabel Moreno on Unsplash 

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