Break the steps during this break 3/10

Tumbling down, into the swirling pond... And up !

In the second article of this series, I evoke a state most of us are familiar with :

When lost in a peaceful moment of silence, we were driving a long and quiescent road, until we realized we could not recall the last meters ; we were reading and enjoying our book, but we were gone along the last two pages... And suddenly loneliness hits, and sadness hits, sometimes melancholy hits and we realize we have been taken down to the bottom of our well-known dark pond again. A memory in the form of an image presented itself to our mind, a scent... Now is the moment where we need to identify where we started on that dark journey. It is melancholy. In first instance, not dark, not just yet. Not painful, not just yet. But it will come. And we know it. The unconscious process has started. And we need to realize it is indeed easier to not even start a dragging down-the-swirl process, and to face quickly the wall to climb in order to grasp the light again.

So here... Let's get to the hard path of the quest.

First, we need pay attention to the shadowy curtains of our soul. As we are used to neglect them, it is a challenge to notice them, but improvement comes quick when the margin is wide... Check with yourself, often, and again ; check how you are feeling. Check with yourself what "feeling" is : try and find where it is in your body. Is it in you right shoulder ? Is it your lower back ? Is it somewhere in your abdomen, left upper quadrant maybe ? You know that chronic pain you have, in the jaw, the ankle, the neck. Start tracking it, give it meaning, yield it its space ! Next time you notice it, out of the blue, check the environment you are in, or the last thought you were having, or what you smelled. Track the line of thoughts as far as you can. Acknowledge everything. Do it often. Enjoy it even. You will realize this pain is giving you a major indication of your state. Even before you realize the state you would otherwise end up in. And that is to be cherished. And that has to be worked with.

With practice, we will be able to discover what started the process. At first, we will not be able to walk that far. With practice though, we will improve. At first after being over attentive to the process, memories of what happened just before will emerge ; then memories of what happened just before that one, up to when eventually you will be able to discover the trigger. And that discovery part of the trigger, is very important, and it will become easy : as you will be able to recognize the change when the trigger appears, you will not have to walk backwards an endless and fallow road !

And if you still find yourself down that dark pond...? You will acknowledge your own suffering, you will laugh about having fallen down the swirl, and... you will be very gentle to yourself, turn to your anchor list (cf article 2/10) and you will nurture yourself up to when you can start the journey again.

And if you found yourself laughing at your melancholy, drop a cheers to yourself in the comments below !

Next time we will depict the way to deal with a foreseen burning bush situation that you cannot avoid (although avoidance is not the best ally but stepping in do needs guidance : that is also the subject of a following article).