And just like that, January 2015 has slipped into two digits. Yesterday I sat sipping tea on my bed, looking at the floating constellations of motes dancing on a sunbeam. It feels like the year has hit it's stride. From now, one day will roll into another. Smooth, easy, unremarkable, nice. But let's see.
A year or so ago, I was filled with so much anxiety about what's coming next, what's the meaning of it all, when will all this end. I don't know why I put myself through all that. It felt as if some cosmic memo had come to everybody on earth and I missed it because I had gone to the loo. Anyway, to mitigate all of that drama, I was reading a lot of self-help books. Many, many of them. Poring over pages expecting text to leap out and tell me that it was all going to be okay. The books, themselves, weren't too bad. Your Soul's Plan by Robert Shwatz was particularly moving. You Can Heal you Life by Louise Hay is one of my favorite books. If you do get this, begin with the last chapter - the part where she writes about her life. There is so much kindness there. I hope that someday when I look back at these days, I'll remember them just as kindly.
I also read copiously on chakra meditation and stuff. Maybe it was the panic with which I was reading that robbed me of the pleasure that reading normally brings. But things change. Slowly, days would begin without me getting angry or anxious over whether my help will show up on time or not. (They didn't and I let them go.) Or be very upset because someone at work wasn't following my directions. (They hadn't understood me clearly.) Slowly, days got a teensy bit easier. That's when I picked up a novel - all drenched in characters and plots and moods and narratives and voices and dialogues. A novel. All that self-help literature where I had to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings and whatever had parched me a little. And then the novel plumped me right back.
I love fiction. It sustains me. Whatever I need somes from in there. Always has. I don't know why I forget that fiction, for me, has always been enough. This year, I'm going to glut on my storybooks.
A year or so ago, I was filled with so much anxiety about what's coming next, what's the meaning of it all, when will all this end. I don't know why I put myself through all that. It felt as if some cosmic memo had come to everybody on earth and I missed it because I had gone to the loo. Anyway, to mitigate all of that drama, I was reading a lot of self-help books. Many, many of them. Poring over pages expecting text to leap out and tell me that it was all going to be okay. The books, themselves, weren't too bad. Your Soul's Plan by Robert Shwatz was particularly moving. You Can Heal you Life by Louise Hay is one of my favorite books. If you do get this, begin with the last chapter - the part where she writes about her life. There is so much kindness there. I hope that someday when I look back at these days, I'll remember them just as kindly.
I also read copiously on chakra meditation and stuff. Maybe it was the panic with which I was reading that robbed me of the pleasure that reading normally brings. But things change. Slowly, days would begin without me getting angry or anxious over whether my help will show up on time or not. (They didn't and I let them go.) Or be very upset because someone at work wasn't following my directions. (They hadn't understood me clearly.) Slowly, days got a teensy bit easier. That's when I picked up a novel - all drenched in characters and plots and moods and narratives and voices and dialogues. A novel. All that self-help literature where I had to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings and whatever had parched me a little. And then the novel plumped me right back.
I love fiction. It sustains me. Whatever I need somes from in there. Always has. I don't know why I forget that fiction, for me, has always been enough. This year, I'm going to glut on my storybooks.
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