Sometimes when I’m struggling with less than stellar mental health, I hear a gentle voice talking me through it. Usually, a simple sentence or two nudges me enough to break out of the mental loop. Over the years, I’ve tried to capture those words.
The Look Here file was initially created because my perceptions can be unreliable when I’m struggling with mental health issues. I need an outside influence to tether me to reality when I can’t trust my own brain to do so. And it needs to be something specific to what happens in my world when things are starting to untether.
Suzuki Roshi once said about questioning our life, our purpose, “It’s like putting a horse on top of a horse and then climbing on and trying to ride. Riding a horse by itself is hard enough. Why add another horse? Then it’s impossible.” Long Quiet Highway by Natalie Goldberg While this quote is usually placed within the context of questioning oneself, I’ve found it useful when expanded out to anything that is already “hard enough”…
Have you ever been injured and gone through physical therapy? Maybe it took several months, or longer, of doing routines that evolved based on your situation before you started to feel well enough to forget to do your routines. After a while, the ache might come back and you realize it’s been far-too(only a week, I swear)long since you did your “daily” exercises. No? Yeah, who does that? Anywhoozle. Lately, I’ve been focused on understanding…
Tomorrow will have an island. Before night I always find it. Then on to the next island. These places hidden in the day separate and come forward if you beckon. But you have to know they are there before they exist. Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island. So far, I haven’t let that happen, but after I’m gone others may become faithless and careless. Before them will tumble the wide unbroken…