You know that feeling when #shithappens and it’s not quite going with your plans?
Happenings.
We are somewhat helpless in the fact that Happenings happen and we’re stuck dealing with the mess it left in its path and stuck feeling that there’s nothing you can do about time traveling back to before it fell apart.
Overshare: I was fine 10 minutes ago. Doing my thing and all. Then, I get a text. And that text pulled the rug from under me. In reality, it wasn’t all that dramatic, I’m the one being dramatic! I’m just pissed.
Today, I would want to read a book that slaps me in the face a little and makes me realize that people do things for #reasons, Happenings happens and I am WAY too attached to my fragile view of the way things “should” be. So, this book is gonna need some serious sass! I’d want this book to be a little bitchy and self-deprecating.
Sidenote: I would usually want a calm book that would lovingly walk me through the pains of attachment, how to free myself from the tethers of control and attachment, and focus on my own self in the spirit of hope and allow my soul to connect with something beyond my petty plans. But I don’t think that’s happening today 🙂
Let’s do this!
The bowl has fallen and it broke.
The tomato sauce stained your shirt.
Overshare: I’m not kidding here, but as I was writing this, I got a call that made me “NOOoooooooo!!!” all over again. SERIOUSLY! I always say that a problem doesn’t go away until we learn from it… I hope that by the end of this MiniBook, I’ll be good 🙂
So, back to shitty stuff that happens!
Someone you love to work with left.
Your favorite pickles are discontinued.
A loved one screwed up something in their lives.
We get dumped.
Our car gets scratched.
The list can go on for days, right?!
Sidenote: I actually find that ranting-out a list of everything that pisses me off like this actually helps getting things off my chest. I recommend writing it and ditching it. No need to get anyone else involved in our bitch-fest. They have their own little “NOOoooooooo!!!” things to deal with, trust me.
Shit happens that we can’t do anything about. It’s out of our control.
Sidenote: For the sake of making this a MiniBook and not a full book, I will only focus on day-to-day things that piss us off. However I would like to take this opportunity to say that there are so many things in the world that we feel completely helpless about that are impacting us, the way we live and our view of the future. These issues need our attention, action and to be taken seriously. I hope it’s okay with you, but I will just focus on the little stupid things that drive us nuts since I want our focus to be on the things in our control: Ourselves.
Okay, there are things that suck and that happened. For some reason, this particular thing is NOT rolling off our back. Maybe our back is already full-capacity of crap sliding off and getting stuck and we’re just fresh out of tickets for the “off-the-back water slide”.
Sometimes is that it hit a sore spot. We might be super-cool unless a particular subject gets hit. It’s like having a bruise and something is trying to massage it. It’s a sore spot. Leave it alone!
Maybe the fabric of our patience is just too thin right now. Just like a great pair of jeans from our teen years that we tried to wear out at the knees and all of a sudden, you sit down and “sckritch”. You butt feels a draft!
Full slide, bruise or butt-tear on fabulous jeans that were almost just right, whatever it is, it feels bad and we want out.
I call this “hitting my point”. It’s even become sign language with some friends and I. We put our hands together like a little triangle tip and flatten it out. It all started when a buddy of mine ordered pie and the waitress microwaved it. We were both heart-broken (Yes, I am aware it was just pie, but we both love pie. I even tell my kids I love them more than pie! They feel the love!). We were sitting at the table, staring at this abomination of a “slice of pie”, aka “puddle of pie-stuff”. The point was gone. Her favorite part. And ever since, I started comparing my tolerance to the point of a slice of pie.
NOOooooooo!! Often comes with WHyyyyyyyyyy?!?! (in a whiny or angry voice, you choose).
I can hear the chiller-side of me saying: Come on Karine, it’ll pass… Bla bla bla…
Look Chill-Me, I’m SUPER NOT in the mood!!
I am very well aware that though this will not “matter” in five years, it is affecting me today, and whatever I do or not do today affects my tomorrow. I’m sorry Chill-Me! It DOES matter and I WILL feel the effects of this in 5 years! Either I will be better for it and learned to cope better and learned a life-lesson or, I will be affected in ways I cannot say because it was a small ripple effect. But it’s BS to think that it won’t matter in 5 years!
Even if the object of our frustration is theoretically solved today, the ripple effect will still be active.
“It’s for the best”
WTF?!?!
GEEZ Chill-Me!!! LAY OFF!!
“It will all work out in the end?”
GEEZ Chill-Me! Do you even know what you’re saying anymore?!!
Chill-Me should really just chill and let me do my thing! Because when we’re living a Happening, the lack of control sucks. Sure, there could be miracles hidden in the event and it leads us to things we would have never thought of, but it stings.
Let’s be totally real here. When we get upset for all the reasons that are out of our hands is that we’re pissed that we don’t have control or that we lost control. We don’t see that we never had control in the first place. We thought we did: Illusion, gotta love it.
Now, add serious attachment issues to control issues and we just created an emotional chemist’s cocktail that could blow at any second.
I own it. I may be mad, angry, resentful, jealous, envious, pissed, grouchy, confused, moody, annoyed, ashamed, frustrated, discouraged, scared, embarrassed, upset, or just plain volcanic over the incident. I may feel like I’m losing my mind or want to hide. Perhaps hibernation with bears is a good idea…
We’ve all seen how sci-fi handles scientific experiments gone wrong with some greedy person, an angry person and a scared person. It never goes well. Two words: Anything Jurassic!
And, very much like anything Jurassic, it’s someone who had NOTHING to do with creating the problem who has to mop it up and deal with it. Talk about lack of control! What made them successful is that they weren’t attached to making it work in a specific way (unlike the greedy, angry and scared people). They just wanted to survive and save people. And those who were attached to the crazy experiment, spoiler, they mostly died.
Funny enough, I feel like a t-rex when I’m in this particular mood…
Paleontologists do not believe that dinosaurs were particularly smart. And, when I hit my point, I feel like my brain dumbs down a few notches. Not the best for figuring out the best way to get over something! Rage + Dumb = This isn’t gonna get better any time soon.
So, as I stomp around growling and roaring, nothing is getting solved.
Sidenote: Wait a minute! I’m just ranting here and you’re probably wondering when I’m freaking-fraking gonna get over it and say something useful! You are 100% correct.
Well, I am over it actually.
I expressed myself in a victim-free way. I got all the emotions out that I needed to get out.
I had a bit of a Pity-Party, but not for too long.
I applied humor to the situation which helped me a lot.
And, since I’m writing with the feeling that I’m communicating, I’m imagining that people care and I care about what they are going through and that we can relate to one another.
Essentially, I had the opportunity to get over myself in a 5-step way:
- Realize something happened
- Assess how you feel
- Try to feel out why you feel that way
- Express it safely without harm
- Move forward
Now that I’m over it, I still have problems to solve in my Jurassic mess. But I’ll do way better dealing with logic from a calm place than panic mode from an angry place. Right?!
Thank you for listening!
Enjoy,
Karine