The Lady Calen of Impromptu Promptlings has gifted us with the next step in The Sandbox Writing Challenge!
Exercise 2
It’s all about Balance. Do you consider yourself a balanced person? What are some of the things you do on a daily, weekly, etc. basis to keep yourself balanced? If you don’t feel you are, what can you do to help you find some of that needed balance?
My first thought was, I’m highly unbalanced. Probably more because of my very contradictory likes. On the one hand, I’m drawn to some rather dark interests – books I read (post apocalyptic), movies and series I watch – The Walking Dead; The Sons of Anarchy; Vampire movies, Stephen King novels, CSI, Dexter… you get the picture.
On the other hand, I am also drawn to very light, fun, and up shows: Everwood, Gilmore Girls, McLeod’s Daughters – very family oriented shows, and movies like “Eat, Pray, Love,” “Serendipity,” “Sleepless in Seattle”, and ‘The Lake House”, “You’ve Got Mail” – Mr. Quantum and my anniversary movie…
How I navigate life’s challenges, usually begins with disaster thinking; Oh No! with lots of over the top beliefs of ‘I’ve lost everything,’ or ‘I’m losing control,’ and my panic disorder brings me to my knees, screaming, ‘make it go away.’ Though I have worked hard at panic management, and have come to understand that there is nothing wrong with asking for support, of which Mr. Quantum is stellar! I’m phobic – the worst was agoraphobia, where I couldn’t even leave the comfort of my home, couldn’t drive, and stayed stuck in a spiral of fear, dread, and misbeliefs that, in the moment, I was taking my last breaths.
While the panic management has morphed the texture of my anxiety, and how I react, I’m still tricked by that disaster thinking, which is a Langolier,* with great chomping teeth that I’m sure will consume me. However, I somehow have the ability to ‘turn on a dime,’ as the saying goes. Case in point.
In 2005, Q and I moved up here to the Northeast from Texas. We’re sitting with a ton of bags, and waiting for Amtrak to come into the station. It’s always a long wait. Suddenly, over the loud speaker, the last call for our train is heard! WHAT????? No! We’re gonna miss the train! So we gather our things, running, huffing and puffing, and me losing my mind to the stupid ‘what ifs’ and all the ear mark rubbish of disaster thinking, only to arrive on the platform, and find the train has not yet pulled into the station. Of course, in that first moment of not seeing the train there, I freaked even more… but as I turned around and saw it coming down the track toward us, not moving away, suddenly, as if I never had gone berserk, everything stopped, seemingly like my molicules were re-organizing themselves after teleportation. I was fine. That eternity of stupid thinking was gone, appearing to never have happened.
The other side of the coin is my spiritual approach to life. It’s quite Pagan, Nature based, and I have a huge respect for and love of all brother and sister beings. My days are spent following the Wheel of the Year. I’m more aware of consciously moving with the cycles of Mama Gaia, and find my thinking has opened up, allowing me to see that I am part of, not separate from, the rest of life and All That Is. The books which come with that side are written by authors like Pema Chodron, Lao Tzu, Deng Ming Dow. I’ve discovered new tools to help me in my Earthwalk like Tarot and oracle cards to connect to inner understanding, and hopefully, being able to help other people as well.
I was born with a vivid imagination, and that is double sided, too. Visualization has played a great part in being able to flip that switch from asleep (when I walk in chaos), to awake (when I live mindfully). I’ve learned over the years to use that in meditation, and to begin healing the insults of the tragedies of childhood – that which needs more intensive work – to accepting mortality and living more authentically which is actually of gift of the process of maturing (aging).
No, I have not left out that special thing which has impacted my life as much, and along with all the ups and downs: my music is as varied as my tastes in reading and watching, but it is integral in everything I am, and do.
So, when I look back at it, it really paints a picture of balance.
Quantum Hermit 