A Different Kind of Message

While working on re-writes of the last chapter of my book, Why Do I Feel This Way? 

I learned something so startling that I just have to share it.

Over the last four weeks, life’s been pretty hectic, and not a lot of fun.  I found a bedbug in my favorite chair, which meant we had to strip our apartment bare and keep EVERYTHING in sealed plastic bags for 14 days while we were fumigated.  What I didn’t know until last night—-two days after my housemate and I finally put everything back together again—-was that, along with everything else that got cleaned out, my excitement and confidence in my work were gone too.

With the support of a very good friend, I got them back last night, and I was reminded of how fragile we humans are.  Oh I know we pretend we’re not, but all that does is keep us from knowing when our positive feelings have gone AWOL.  My brain was so focused on getting me through the awful ordeal at home that it stopped reminding me how happy my book makes me.  My work became less real, and I was feeling no excitement at all.  My friend asked me a bunch of questions, all designed to get me free of my just-ended yucky experience and then, there they were, my happy and confident feelings about what I love to be doing with my life.

I have to work at being positive.  We all do.  It’s not hard, and we can get there surprisingly quickly—-but it doesn’t happen automatically and it doesn’t sustain itself for long.   Automatically, our brains are always on the outlook for threats to our wellbeing.  They’re so vigilant that we have to remind ourselves, deliberately, that there’s more to life than just playing it safe.  Tomorrow, I’ll tell you how my friend got me back there.

It’s great to be back!