Inner Calmness - But Not All The Time :-)

Quite how you are meant to be able to maintain an inner calmness all of the time I have yet to master and I'm having some difficulty getting it right all the time but I am getting there.

Yesterday was a case in point and it took a good 15 minutes to stop thinking negative thoughts and dismiss them and get back on an even keel.  I do have the tools to do that now and that to my mind is the greatest thing I have in my armoury these days.  I can identify what is going on and deal with it.  The TV comes on and the bad news spills out - I take the headlines and turn over.  They start with "good Evening" and then proceed for 30 minutes to tell you why it isn't.  It's not that I am not interested in the news just that I don't need all the argument and conflict that they seem to believe is necessary - tell me the news but stop giving me a one sided view of it.  Just report what it is.

And so I deliberately switch off, change channel or go and do something else.  I don't need all that pain inflicted on me, who does?  Of course there's plenty of stuff going on in my life as it is and there are some reflections on that which lead me into bad places but I am stopping those too.  I think the hardest things to divert are those "regrets" and "things you can't have" I mean opportunities which came my way and either I didn't take them or let them slip through my fingers or perhaps they were just not meant to be.  Coming to terms with these which hold strong emotions and heart tugging decisions that may or may not have been made and may or may not have been in my ability to control has been difficult.  What if though cannot be entertained because it is pretty futile and these things have passed.  

Some of these experiences have been just wonderful, exciting, an emotionally charged roller coaster and then extinguished and behind me, or are they?  There's the problem, where there's hope!  I just have to work so hard to dismiss these thoughts and rely on the fact that if something happens then it happens.  I don't feel that I should pursue a "lost cause" that I should waste energy and emotion doing something that is not logical and may not actually yield anything.

So I have to work very hard to relax and breath and then dismiss these nagging little ideas that come into my head.  I found myself thinking about a wonderful time in my life and if I'd only had the strength to have done something about it but I didn't then, I can't know and so what it the point of it?  It's the brain tricking me and questioning me over why I'm leaving Mrs. F. and what if I'd done something some years ago and wouldn't life be so much better etc., etc.

These are the hardest thoughts I have to deal with these days because most of the other stuff is gone and doesn't come back - this is obviously to do with perhaps a fear in the back of my mind that I may not meet someone in the future or something like that and it's irrational but of course might happen.  I just have to repeat to myself that "This Too Will Pass" meaning it's got my attention but it can't hurt me and it is in the past and has happened and that it is no use worrying about whether something will happen in the future either.  That's the other phrase I use to myself "It Will Be What It Will Be".  Because I know what this is I can deal with it but it still doesn't always get you past that "what if" question :-) I hope I'll be able to stop thinking like that because it really isn't a fair question at all.