Today is a bank holiday, but I know what you’re thinking. “Oh God, I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow… I’ve been sitting around for a week and a bit and haven’t really achieved anything… All those things I’ve got to do… I haven’t even started on my list… Resolutions? Haven’t even thought of any yet… Does that make me a bad person?”
This rag-tag boot sale of thoughts is getting in the way of you relaxing and enjoying the last day of the festive season. Pearl’s advice is – sit down, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Allow whatever thoughts are arising to arise – don’t try to edit them or make them go away, or suppress them with a positive affirmation.
However, don’t hitch a ride on any of these thoughts either. Notice them, acknowledge them, and let them pass. If any of these thoughts stir up a pot of emotions, let them bubble up too. With feelings, it’s even more important to let them be felt but the trick is not to dive into them. And apologies if I’m mixing my metaphors here, but hopefully you get the picture (of a great big melting pot of mixed emotion).
This is the hardest thing of all. Because the melting pot of mixed emotion also contains another ingredient: memories. Big, scary, technicolour memories. Full-length, widescreen, front-row-of-the-cinema memories.
But here’s the thing about memories: rather like movies, they may be based on a true story, but there’s a lot of artistic licence involved. They’re only stories. Did you hear that? THEY’RE ONLY STORIES. And once the penny drops that they’re only stories, they stop scaring you half to death and plunging you back into the emotion you felt when the memory was in its original form – the present – and you stuffed the emotion away, being too afraid to feel it.
if you get hijacked by a memory and its attendant emotion, allow yourself to feel the emotion you stuffed away. And if the emotion is too intense and the memory is too much of a blockbuster, keep breathing through it until you can make it into the projectionist’s booth and stop the reel, or make the picture smaller, duller, put it in black and white and remove the soundtrack. When you’ve done all that, open your eyes and enjoy the gift of presence. It’s a bank holiday, remember? Enjoy yourself…
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