howdoyouspellroisin-blog

[howdoyouspellroisin-blog]

Writing Your Way to Happiness

I'm angry today. I am trying very hard to shake it off like Taylor Swift has told me to. But it's just not working. I tried being empathetic when my Nanny was 20 minutes late for work because she was on hold with her phone company trying to reinstate her mother's phone number. I tried ignoring the irritation I felt when I was telling my daughter how to be "good little girl" today and my Nanny interrupted me to re-phrase what I was saying to her but in a louder voice. I tried thinking that she was just trying to help by adding another concept to the confusing and conflicting world of toddler discipline. I tried ignoring the very loud women who were gossiping in the back of yoga class up until the teacher had to start talking over them to infer that "quiet reflection" is the name of the game prior to class starting. I tried breathing through it at my very difficult yoga class this morning. I thought the floating feeling in my limbs and my mind while in corpse pose was a sure sign of my victory over the dark lord. Nah. That was just a very short lived and beautiful respite, irritatingly shattered when I got to the grocery check-out and realized I couldn't pay for this food to feed me or my children for lunch because I left my wallet at home, for the umpteenth time since becoming a working Mum with too much on her mind all the time. Then I couldn't get out of the parking lot to drive home to get my wallet because I didn't get my parking ticket validated. But I eventually succeed, and drove home, got my wallet, waved at my confused kids who saw me dash in and out of the front door to avoid any "issues", drove back to the grocery store, paid for my groceries and sat down to eat my lunch. I promised my sister that I'd call her back after yoga class to talk about an upcoming trip home to visit my family, except my phone wouldn't complete a single call for some goddamn reason. Then I had to listen to some fucking idiot tell his boss that he didn't tell his employee of 20 years that her salary was going to go down drastically when she agreed to move from one retail location to a smaller retail location and what a problem he had on his hands now because the language he was asked to use was too vague in the area of "minimum living wage". Just then, there was another small respite in my anger when I smelled something stale, expecting to see someone's annoying damp dog and looked up to see a lovely friendly face of a homeless man warming up his lunch in the grocery store microwave. I smiled back and wolfed down my sandwich. Guilt was now ferociously punching me in the stomach and telling my heart to stop being so fucking pathetic and ungrateful for life. But now, I had to rush home to relieve the Nanny and in my rushing, I ignored a slow moving couple behind me on the ramp and scooted past them to put my shopping cart away. When I finally looked up and stepped aside for them to pass, the sweet lady said in a gentle voice, "Well, if you weren't so much faster than us, we would have taken that cart from you." I smiled quickly, very embarrassed by my hurried pace and realized my cart was the only cart left. I thought, if had only been more self-aware and if my heart hadn't been so full of anger and resentment towards the world today, I would have offered the elderly couple my cart, saved myself a trip back up the ramp and in the meantime, have found just a little more room to breathe. But I didn't. My anger is winning today. My laptop won't connect to the internet so I can be productive with the small amount of time that I have to get things done today. My phone battery just died so I can't call my sister to deal with the shit storm of anger raging my way triggered once again by my narcissistic father stepping all over my silver lining. I was swimming in my blissful thoughts of spending a beautiful week visiting with my sisters and their families, only for them to be dashed by the imposition of a "once in a blue moon" visit by my father who repeatedly blames his offspring for the disappointment in his life and his failings towards us. I get the irony of this. My angry father, angry at us and the ugly, spiteful world full of morons and haters, for things not going the way he wanted them to go. Me, my anger at the world and for things not going the way they need to go today. But I can only hope that those tiny moments of respite, when the world presents an opposing point of view to our own insular and overly self-centered minds, that they are enough to snap me out of it. At least for today. I can't say the same for my father. It's too late for him. I wrote this today because I remembered a New York times article that my sister posted on my Facebook wall, "Writing Your Way to Happiness." It references new research on the power of writing - and then rewriting - your personal story [which] can lead to behavioral changes and improve happiness. Supposedly, writing your stories allows you to more easily transition from a viewpoint of pessimism to one of optimism and improving outlooks and outcomes in life. I think I'll give that a go. I'm up for trying out a drug free, psychotherapy bill-free road to mental health and happiness; especially when Namaste is just not cutting it.

[howdoyouspellroisin-blog]

When you get to that confrontation of truth with what matters to you, it creates the greatest opportunity for change.