What an insight. What a radical thought.
"You know how you always feel awful about yourself?" I think. "Why not try not doing that?"
It obviously wouldn't be easy. I have decades of experience feeling awful about myself. It's second nature.
"And well it should be," the negative voice in my head chimes in. "You are, after all, awful."
Hmm. Hard to argue with that logic. It's so... axiomatic.
But what if I perhaps pretended I wasn't awful? Just for one day. If I pretended that I'm proud of myself, pretended that it doesn't matter that I have no idea what to write for today's blog post, that when I try to do more of those writing prompts there's a wall there, that I'm completely lost and confused and afraid and miserable and...
... OK. That is exactly what I need to not do. Dammit.
So, yeah. If instead of that stuff I just pretend it's all fine. What if I try acting like everything is as it should be? Like it's all right that...
... No. Don't go down into spirals about why it's not all right. Stay here.
And I can hear you yelling, negative voice, I can hear that you want to remind me that all that terrible stuff does matter. I'm not saying it doesn't, OK? Simmer down. But just for today how about we pretend it doesn't, just as a sort of game, just as an experiment, to see how it makes us feel?
"Can you do that?" I ask my inner voice. "Can you be open enough to give that a fair go?"
"No problemo," the inner voice says, cool as a cucumber, swirling a brandy in its non-corporeal hand.
Then I go to put my socks on and the only pairs are hanging on the line and on the way downstairs I instantly forget what I'd just decided and I spend the next two hours feeling awful about myself.
- - -
I remember the plan while walking around Weston Park, and I feel awful about myself for forgetting to not feel awful about myself. Then I see the irony in this, and feel awful about myself for how stupid I am for not immediately seeing the irony in this, which is itself ironic, which...
... I mentally slap myself across the face. STOP IT. Just stop it. Just accept whatever this present moment brings. Decide to feel good about yourself. It's a simple choice. Make it.
I breathe out a long way, and look at the park around me. The sun is shining through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the ground. The fountain is splashing loudly. The splashing is very matter-of-fact. There is a calmness to it. It is nice. Everything is beautiful.
I walk on a way, then forget what I'm thinking about and start feeling awful about myself again.
- - -
Later, in the trendy coffee shop I've begun frequenting, I see my usual table is taken.
Then I think how weird it is to have a usual table after three visits to a place, that it betrays some unique and fundamental failing on my part, a debilitating need to retreat to safety, an inability to try new experiences, and that everyone can see this in me, that it will be obvious to the staff of the coffee shop. It's good that I have to sit at a different table.
But because I'm caught up in these thoughts, and in how paranoid, not to mention narcissistic, the thoughts are, how much of a mess I am inside my head, I get to a seat and then realise I haven't picked up the wooden block that serves as the table number to which the waitress will bring my coffee.
I go back to get it. But I find I'm hemmed in between the breakfast bar and a customer's seat. There's not enough room. I start to turn around, then turn back. There might be enough room. I look. No. There's not enough room. I could ask the customer to budge in a little, but let's be honest, I'm not doing that. So I turn around again, walk back round the long way, now convinced that I look both weak for not asserting my right to pass the customer, and also utterly insane for walking to the middle of the floor, pivoting wildly on the spot, then looping back to the till.
It would be nice to make a joke about this to the waitress, to make myself look silly for the staff's amusement, to show I don't take myself seriously -- I feel that's what a normal human being would do -- but I'm on that cusp of blushing where everything is heightened and prickling, and the sweat is already running down my forehead from the heat, so I just take the wooden block proffered by the bored waitress and mumble my thanks and clomp back to my seat.
And then I remember I'm not supposed to be feeling awful about myself.
And I feel doubly awful for how awful I've been feeling about myself.
And triply awful for feeling doubly awful about myself.
And quadruply awful...
Ung. Remember the park. It's a simple letting go. A decision. It's... like a Chinese finger trap. The more you struggle, the worse it gets. You just have to relax. You have to accept.
OK. That's all you have to say. OK.
So I'm a fuck up, am I? OK.
I'm the worst person to have ever existed, not just on this planet but on all planets, and in universes not yet even created? OK.
Everyone in this coffee shop thinks I'm a loser? OK.
And then you go from there. Probably everyone in this coffee shop hasn't even noticed me, probably they're far too caught up in their own lives to worry about mine -- but if they have noticed me, and they do think I'm a loser, then OK. The truth is the truth. It cannot be argued with. This moment is already all it will ever be. You can only accept it. The next moment, you can try to change that one, sure -- but that action has to come out of the stillness and acceptance of this present moment, or it will be doomed to failure.
Reality is what it is. I am who I am.
- - -
So I sit there and think about that for a while. I work like that on every negative thought that arises -- and boy do they arise! And I sit in the afternoon sun drinking my coffee and writing, and it is good.
And, yes, eventually I forget, and I start feeling awful about myself again.
But I remembered a few times today. That's more than I remembered yesterday. Maybe I'll remember even more tomorrow.
A Chinese finger trap is the same every time. You can learn to beat it.
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