Dear Jack:

I read your poem in my mind, rapping it while reading, yes, I can hear it being rapped and well. Part of the rap is “this thing they call self-love
what is it?
time it paid me a visit”

and of course I have the answer… just kidding. Maybe I will ponder it this morning with a “beginner’s mind”-

Self love is… when you take a big, big stamp with OKAY on it and stamp it on yourself, all over, okay, okay, okay. You stamp your body, all over, this is okay and that is okay and you stamp your brain, your thoughts, okay, okay and you stamp your feelings, okay okay and you end up with I AM OKAY. Approved.

Using my beginner’s mind I will also try to answer Inky’s question: “what do we do when we wake up at 2 in the morning having an anxiety attack?” You go to A place in your brain where there is no panic or anxiety attack, a place in your brain that is protected from attacks (reserve such place, table, “occupied” sign on it, so when anxiety attacks it does not sit at THAT table)

From that place you observe the other place or places under attack. You breathe and think realistic thoughts, not just any thoughts, but true to reality thoughts and breathe in and out.

Like when your foot cramps and it hurts, you see it from all the way up, from your head looking down and you know that not your whole body hurts, only your foot and you can figure out what to do from your brain. You are not ALL cramping foot.

No, that was not beginner’s mind, I realized some time into my answer.This is a well practiced strategy I use.

anita

beautiful.

Jack, are you still there? I am thinking of trying rapping if you are there to support me in this questionable endeavor.
anita

Finding the rhyme
is …well, I am looking for something to rhyme with rhyme
Nothing comes up at this time
Wait, I may have just done it fine
I may be on a roll, where is the mike?
Is it really happening, just this once?
I almost skipped it, but then… look at what’s I came up with
All by myself, I am so proud,
Even if it doesn’t rhyme.

anita

Dear Jack:

You wrote above: “I know when I’m getting overly depressed or anxious, the first thing that goes is my sense of humour. All those dark demons, seem so much darker, the future more hopeless, my problems more unsolvable.”

It does not HAVE TO be that you must get depressed or anxious again and again. There will be less and less of that if you walk the path of healing, of seeing more and more into what is and what was. Less and less, not in ways of distraction alone, but in progressive, ongoing improvement in baseline of well being.

You have to go back just enough into the past to get a few things straight, that is all. Go back into the past just enough so to extricate the little boy Jack held captive there.

I will try to rap it:

Into the past, see jack goes
into the past, to pick up a lonely boy
Into the past, see jack goes
where little boy jack is captive, sad and lonely
See jack goes, into the past
To see himself bullied, oh, scared boy jack
into the past to see jack, compliant, so says mom
into the past, there goes jack
back enough to see scared little boy jack

anita

Well, how are you Jack???
anita

I am a heavy, grey cloud tonight. For one, digestive problem tonight- that always puts me in a grey mood. Could have been that iceberg lettuce, very fibrous, it was.

Wonder about your possible storm, or was it completely funnily fabricated…?

Any New Year Resolutions type thinking for 2016?

anita