Another set back;
Another shake up;
Another break down… What happened?
The answer lies in the prepositional verbs: ‘Back – Up – Down’
Not steady but hurled around;
On life’s rollercoaster.
My anchors were not firm,
Under waves of emotion they squirmed.
I try to breathe, return from mind to body as I’d learned.
Let the ripples be superficial;
Ground myself, stay steady, don’t cripple;
Try to be solid like the Zen stone;
Impermeable to weather: never roam.
But no:
There’s nowhere to rest, no sense of home.
Now the waves grow taller, the winds turn to gusts;
And my anchor shifts, weakened by rust.
My roots, thin and feeble, had not yet entrenched themselves into the earthy nutritious networks;
Not yet reached that rich layer of resilience and resources.
So the battle’s lost.
All perspective’s gone, whisked into whirlpools of worry;
All rational replaced by recklessly rampaging self-criticism,
And threatening high tides of cynicism.
I abandon my mind to the high seas of self-pity;
To be tossed into turmoil, tugged at by illusions of alone-ness and capsized by catastrophic untruths of my inability.
Until…
Negativity’s had its fill.
And in the morning’s balmy light,
The calm after the storm comes into sight.
With relief, it dawns that the set-back-shake-up-break-down,
Is nothing more than a thorny crown;
Now gently detaching from me,
Becoming,
As day unravels, a blurry night-time memory,
Persisting only in the stiff corners of my body.
Now leaving the bedroom fog;
Leaving the set back to reset;
Leaving the shake up to up-rise,
Boarding the lifeboat of morning with new eyes.
Now making a cup of tea,
Maybe step outside and try to breathe:
Up, down and back in normality.
Head-over-Healing 