*I restrained myself from including any mention of violence in the personal health update posted earlier in the week in order to offer a message of hope without causing reason for conflict to invade the sense of gratitude conveyed. So, here’s the gist of thoughts that remained unrevealed:
In this world of ours where hate crimes against humanity continue to arise, century after century, it’s vital to our wellbeing for we, who have been given every reason to fear gunfire announcing attacks on peaceful folk, alive one moment, dead the next, to consciously balance a growing sense of anxiety with the acknowledgment that anxiety, left to grow beyond cerebral control suggests that the side of your nature (or mine), which subjects our minds to live in fear of tomorrow is enemy #1, being that fear holds the bright, beautiful, joyous side of your mind hostage, blinding us to this deeper truth: None know beforehand when or where or how our lives will end. None know who will live to dance at his/her 100th birthday party, as did my beloved mother or who will be taken from us while napping, as did my baby sister, whose life had been sniffed out just her sweet smile had begun to respond to ours.
Each time my anxiety rises but before it spikes, the discipled side of my mind takes control over my instinctively fearful side by filling my entire mind with self soothing words such as these:
‘Outside my front door acts of violence may be taking place but at this moment, reality reflects the fact that I am safe in the surroundings that Irwin and I created to express our innermost selves: then I go to a window and witness peacefulness or walk out onto my patio and breathe in nature at its best until my brain’s self discipled side has soothed any leftover anxious thoughts, lingering within my brain’s fearful side, which actually has a name—the limbic system (google it), where basic instincts of fight, flight or freeze take over the undisciplined brain, literally freeing spiking anxiety to paralyze the Neo Cortex from any cognizant thought or logical plan of action if danger is actually present.
Though many months of chemo offered miseries requiring several hospitalizations, the self disciplined side of my brain would soothe the fearful side by saying chemo is not our enemy, Chemo is working it’s magic to help me battle to save my life, and most days and nights, my self disciplined side consciously fed courage to my vulnerabilities so as to decrease anxiety born of unresolved inner conflict arising within as in—I can’t take this anymore/yes we can if we want to enjoy life for many more years. Your mother lived to one hundred and we, our fearful side and our courageous side need to believe that we can do the same by acting in our own best interests as a whole, because as a whole, we can take a leap of faith over fearful quicksand and land on solid ground.’
If you ask, did you really talk to yourself that way? I’d reply as fast as a blink of the eye: I talk to myself, all the time, and so do you—the difference is that I’ve cultivated the voice of productive positivity as penned above, so as soon as fear stimulates my adrenal glands to fill my vessels with more adrenalin pumping than oxygen in case a near and present danger forces me to run for my life, my courageous side makes good use of that huge spurt of energy to grab onto my fearful side so that all of me can leap over inner conflict and land on the shoreline where my whole self can think straight toward brainstorming with myself until a logical solution to whatever scared me pops up through my confused state of mind. In order for my technique (which actually goes from fear to courage in seconds) to work for you, trust and respect must be present. In short, you must have sound reason to respect yourself and trust your judgement.
Intuition fueled tonight’s train of thought to chug along until I’d soothed myself in hopes of sleeping soundly through the night while everyone throughout our nation, including my thoughtful side snd fearful side, awaits attacks of violence to take place, here or there perhaps tomorrow—but at this very moment in time, my loved ones are safe and so am I, and just as I’d entrusted my life into the well trained brains of several doctors before they put me to sleep, I’ve entrusted my thoughtful, self discipled side to befriend, sooth and calm my basic instincts in hopes of having sweet dreams until the danger stalking us all actually knocks at my door ...
When I began to write, tonight, the conscious portion of my brain had no clue that this stream of consciousness, which has been flowing freely from my intuitive and thus non-conflicted neo Cortex, was about to describe the way inner conflict heightens anxiety, when fear creates mental confusion, which in turn stimulates an over production of adrenalin, reducing our oxygen levels needed to think with common sense clearly in mind. But since so many people express anxiety over violence surging suddenly somewhere at some time where we may not be able to do anything to help, I’ve decided to reveal the technique that works wonders for me.
In short, when the fearful side of my brain unhinges the clear thinking side, my well practiced solution seeker shelters fear with three words:
I am safe
And I repeat those words, aloud, until reality suggests that I’m living in the moment with my whole brain intact.
And now that both sides of my brain feel wholly safe, tonight, I’ll bid you good night till the sun shines, tomorrow, when, bright and early, I’ll arise and ready myself to ride next to Irwin as we line up outside our stadium for our first vaccination against Covid, which I see as the next step taken toward my leaving the safety of our home, hopefully, sometime this spring.👩🏻🙂
PS This is the first time in my life that I’m happy to be over 75 and eager to roll up my sleeve to welcome a shot ...
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