Safely Stored

'Safely Stored'

Today I'm scattered. I need to work on my novel for my writing group but am facing huge resistance. I want to paint but it always feels so indulgent that I put it off as some later reward which sometimes I don't get to. It's incredibly gusty here today and my thoughts and emotions feel scattered on the wind. One minute I want to do this, another I need to do that. I'm easily irritated when I feel like this and can easily end up doing nothing productive or nothing I really want to do because I can't settle enough.

What to do when I feel like this? I've done some practical things: cut the tail off my shower pouffy (I know this sounds like a little thing but it's been unwinding daily for weeks now and its tail almost stretched the length of the bathtub! Every time I used it or saw it I'd say to myself, I should do something about that. Finally I did! ), fed the birds in the front yard and in the back yard, prepared a stamped envelope full of poem critiques to mail to a faraway member of our poetry group and checked on bills and marked down the due dates and moved my money around.

The real problem is that I have a full day off with no work, meetings or lunches or appointments, and have a stretch of days coming up that are quite heavily regimented with work and appointments and 'stuff that has to get done'. Today is the kind of day that I often crave but the kind of day that can dissolve into nothingness if I remain too restless. I want to do everything delightful and nothing that I feel I must do! I just stamped my feet! Lol. Even this blog has seemed like a slog today, not the writing of it now but the thinking of what to write.

On days like this, I just need to DO something instead of spinning my wheels. Writing the blog feels much better than thinking about it!

I discovered something at work a few months ago that I figuratively stuffed down into a deep deep pocket so I could control it, protect myself and possibly others and not have to deal with the demons it had hooked itself onto. Basically it was a trigger. I kept it hidden for the most part for 6 weeks until I had to say something and then all manner of things that should have happened did, including me having to examine why I had stuffed it away in the first place. I had to practice extreme self-compassion to understand that and, as a result, decided to see a counsellor, to give myself that gift. She asked me if I could envision a box in which to keep all this stuff I'd pushed down into a pocket, all this 'shameful' stuff. I painted and collaged a box and surrounded it with magic to keep it firmly closed and locked and called it 'Safely Stored'.  I have it in clear view in my studio and can see it from where I sit at the computer. I feel peace when I look at the box. I made it especially feminine and pretty.

It dawned on me today that I can also pour my restlessness inside the box, trust that it can be contained in there. I understand why I feel restless today but it's not serving me well. I need rid of it. I can also art it out or write it out or walk it out or even meditate it out but for now, in this moment, I can also simply store it away. An exorcism if you will. 

And you know what, I can feel that it's worked! May your day be peaceful and nicely-paced. And if not, what can you do or what do you do to settle yourself?

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