Twist of Fate

"This is a new beginning.
I'm back in the land of the living"
- Olivia Newton-John

***

Oh, she's back alright.
We just dug up Olivia Newton-John.

***

There is no greater idol in my lifetime than Olivia Newton-John was to me.  

Or, as she was fondly referred to by many, Olivia Newtron-Bomb, since she was quite the looker back in the days of the Princess Diana hair style  and "Let's Get Physical."

I'm fairly certain I even tried to dress up as her for Hallowe'en - sweat band, leg warmers and all.

Oh, and Sandy from Grease.

Not the nice school girl looking one from the beginning.   The one with the hot black leather pants at the end, with the smoke hanging out of her mouth.

"Tell me about it.   STUD."

I knew every word to the entire movie and pretty much every word to every song she ever wrote.

I wanted her hair, her accent, her fame.

All Olivia, all the time.

Her song tribute is well deserved.

***

I like the term Emotional Fitness.

Isn't it lovely?

It's a whole lot nicer than Mental Health.

I think the Canadian Mental Health Association should change it's name to the Canadian Emotional Fitness Institute.

Eh?

What do you think?  Doesn't it sound swanky?

I mean, I would way rather go to an Emotional Fitness Centre, than a Mental Health Association.

The name somewhat lends to the idea that you are exercising your mind and making it stronger.

Hmmmm...

It actually even suggests the mere possibility that you can get better, and that perhaps we are mentally out of shape, not mentally ill.

Less lock-up, more Lulu.

Just saying.

I like it.

Therefore, I will no longer refer to the words Mental Health, only Emotional Fitness, because I happen to like the term a whole lot better.

It sounds cool, like a place I wanna go.

"What are you doing after work?"

"Oh, just stopping in at the Mind Gym."

Cool, right?

Trust me, everyone is gonna want in and Gwyneth Paltrow will probably have her own chain.

***

The most powerful warm up that can be done for Emotional Fitness is to Create Awareness.

There are all kinds of trendy, fad-dy words out there that could replace this at the moment, but it all boils down to paying attention.

If our state of Emotional Fitness = our Thoughts + Beliefs, we need to spend some time and observe how we operate in both of these categories.

***

You know that scene in Harry Potter where he's on a broom stick, flying around, looking down at everyone beneath him?

I started to look at myself like that, from the corner of the room and almost as a third party.

I wanted to pay attention to two things.

What are the thoughts and language I use to describe myself, and what are the thoughts and language I use to describe others?  

I still do this, these days quietly in meditation, because it's now become second nature.

It is impossible to change your thinking, without awareness of what it is you're actually thinking about.

Go figure.

***

I learned very quickly how easily I could lose control over my thoughts, how the balance could fly off kilter and the negatives could spread like wild fire.

I watched myself compensate for the poor thoughts I had about myself, by responding defensively or speaking poorly about others in a quite failed attempt to make myself feel better.

(Side note: This behavior, of course, does nothing more than drive a false illusion of positive self worth, but never actually solves the problem.  All it really does is gives the monster some new ammunition to rear its ugly head and spew some more nonsense.)

***

I wanted a softer, kinder existence that didn't feel like I was always swimming upstream and at war.

Engaging in conversations that pointed out the flaws in others, and battling to prove my worth had become a really exhausting way to live and I wanted to change.

Once I allowed my true voice to start to shine through, I became astutely aware of how self destructive some of my past thinking was, and that art of awareness caused me to make some very simple shifts.

***

I released the need to be right.

Very rarely do we need to be right.   Our Ego is defensive, and desperately wants us to challenge anything because its' value is determined by external factors.  The other voice, our true self, is not valued in the same way and I only wanted to feed the voice I wanted to hear.

Let me give you an example.

There are six people in a room and one person is telling a story about two of them.   The person says "On Wednesday last week....", and another person in the room says "No,  it was Tuesday."

Their need to be right had to correct the error.

Guess what?

No one cares.

No one cares if it was Tuesday or it was Wednesday.

The Corrector undermined the person telling the story, out of a sole purpose to satisfy their own need to be right.

Now they obviously didn't do it on purpose to harm the other person, but if it happens often enough, the story teller stops telling stories.

Out of ten corrections, in my humble opinion, nine are likely unnecessary.

***

I released judgement.

I chose to stop talking poorly about anyone else, and if I caught myself doing it,  I chose to counter it quickly with something positive.

It is a really unhealthy habit to talk about shit about other people.

I don't even know of a nicer way to say that.

Unhealthy, unproductive, and unnecessary.

I found it led to me worrying about if the person I was talking about was going to find out what I said, I worried about if people were talking about me too, and in general, there was just a whole lot of time spent worrying.

I'm no better or worse a person than anyone else here on this earth and we all operate within our own current level of awareness and knowledge and trudge through the current lesson we are experiencing in our life.

I would speak about the good stuff; someone getting a new job, or traveling to a new city, or I would share stories that people shared with me.

I wanted to spend all my time talking about the future, what I wanted it to look like, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to travel.

I completely and utterly stopped all negative forms of gossip.

This is why I felt so compelled to address my comments, as far fetched as Chapter Two might seem, about Catherine Zeta Jones.   Not at all to backpedal on my opinion from the previous chapter, but because it wasn't true to who I am today.

My rule for myself is simple.

If I mess up and catch myself,  I own it and address it.

Period.

***

I started to accept a compliment.

I still have work to do here, but I'm consciously trying to get better.

Even this week, I still managed to downplay something nice that was said to me.

Friend at Yoga: "I love your writing Sarah.  You're really talented."
Me: "Thank you so much.   I really don't even know where it's all coming from."

Nice gracious acceptance, followed by depreciation.

Awareness is a beautiful thing because as you start paying attention to all the little details, instead of judging, you can start to think "hmmm, next time I'm going to answer - Thank you so much.   I really do love it." - and this allows for growth.

Being kind to ourselves is not always the easiest thing to do.

It takes effort and intention.

***

Emotional fitness is all about awareness and acting wisely on what we can change, while letting go of what we cannot.

Perfectionism, Obsessive Compulsive disorder, Bipolar, even Depression and Anxiety - all have roots in fear, control and attachment to a specific outcome, resulting in a relentless drive for external acceptance.

How can we release some of this pressure?

We are human.   We will make mistakes.  We will screw something up.   We will say something we are mortified came out of our mouths.

Awareness.
Correct.
Shift.
Back on course.

Notice the small changes, appreciate a lighter existence.

Soften some more.

There is only one person we should be comparing ourselves to, and that is who we were yesterday.

Investigate a little more.

What do you feel?

Is there any resentment?

Behind resentment, there is anger.   Behind anger, there is pain.   Behind pain, there is fear.

Be curious.

Explore.

***

What happens, if just for a moment, we let go?

What if the key to stronger emotional health is to release the grip that is so tightly held and trust that all will unfold in the right time and space?

What if we release our judgement, of ourself and others, what if we all practice a higher level of kindness and soften the need to be right, and allow room for the evolutionary flow to run with ease?

It all starts with awareness.

***

These seemingly tiny changes I made became the foundation on which I built a number of new daily habits - habits that I believe, not only, have re-written the program in my brain, but have also completely filled the void.