Miracle
Alright so note to self, I really need to start writing these things earlier in the week, before those bloody Wednesdays send everything tits up. I trained one of my friends this morning (on Zoom, calm down) and she commented that she had totally shit the bed (metaphorically) the previous day, and must have ‘caught’ my ‘Wednesday thing’. LOL. But seriously, it’s a thing. Fuck Wednesdays.
It’s Thursday today, which can still eat a dick, because it’s still lockdown, and things are still equally dumb. However, let’s have a change of tune and turn the tables on this mid-week mental abortion. One strategy I like to use to combat the daily despair is to think of three things that I have to be grateful for.
Here are today’s:
My gums didn’t bleed when I brushed my teeth this morning (seriously, it happens so often I just assumed I’d bought that red stripy one until I looked at the tube).
I almost stood on dog shit TWICE, but didn’t (it was the same one).
Irene’s coffee.
Fuck, I feel great now.
Now that we’re all feeling 11/10 more positive, let me share with you another technique which I’ve been attempting to use on myself regularly. Now bear with me, I’m currently only 33% a counsellor, but I am learning all these exciting new brain things which I’m going to be sharing, so either be excited or just go do your hour of walking.
Here it is.
I want you to imagine that, when you’re asleep tonite, a miracle happens. As you’re sleeping, you have no idea that one has occurred, but when you wake up in the morning you realise that all your problems, all the things you’re anxious about that are literally turning your hair grey… have disappeared.
Sit down if you can, try and relax, and close your eyes. Really take a few minutes to think about how that day would feel and what would be different. How would you know that things had changed for the better? Assumedly you won’t still be in lockdown, of course. That’s a given. But what else would be different?
Here’s three of mine for inspiration:
I’d wake up not feeling anxious. About anything. There wouldn’t be that gross fear about the future hanging over me that I’m about as accustomed to as my bleeding gums.
I’d look forward to work. (I’d have a job, too) I probably wouldn’t be 100% stoked to go to work every day, but I’d know that I was achieving something worthwhile with people who appreciated me and that I wasn’t just treading water and waiting to die (ideally wearing track-pants).
I’d feel secure in the fact that I was loved. I wouldn’t doubt how people I care about felt about me and I wouldn’t need constant validation that I was worth something as a person.
Did I fail to mention that this was gonna get balls deep real fast? Anyway. Once you’ve written down yours, have a look. I bet you one of Irene’s cookies that your positive changes aren’t anything to do with lockdown, or with COVID at all (unless you have actually HAVE COVID and one of your things is that you don’t have it.) The idea now is to think about what is in your power to control, and how you can change your situation for the better. For example, if we’re talking about my list, they are all things that, to a certain extent, I can control. The things that make me feel anxious and sad and unloved are all a product of my own negative thinking, which means they are all things I can change. How I can change them is another matter entirely, and hopefully the answer is within the next 67% of my Diploma (stay tuned).
Try it. Even if there’s only one thing on your list that you can take action towards changing, that’s a win. The closer you can get your life to resemble your Miracle Question vision, the better. And hey, if you can do it under lockdown, imagine what you can fucking do when we’re allowed to hug and frolic outside for more than an hour.
