Emotional | RHYMES&REASONS

April 19, 2015

To deny or not to deny . . . to be in denial is considered a negative but is it?

Denial is a natural reaction to anything which may cause us discomfort or distress, to that which we did not seek – illness, loss of a job or relationship. It’s a form of rejection of participation in what is. Often viewed by others through a lens of negativity and accompanied by an underlying current of judgement, someone ‘in denial’ is perceived to have failed one of life’s many tests.

But denial has a role. We find ourselves catapulted into no man’s land, somewhere between the longed for safety of the familiar past and the resisted, feared future. Shell shocked, our senses heightened and with eyes clouded by confusion, we scramble to return to the safety from whence we came, only to feel the ground give way beneath us. The more we try to no avail the further we sink ever deeper into the quagmire and risk becoming stuck. But it is also a place of self-compassion where we can reside until we’re ready to face that which in this moment feels overwhelming. A place from which acceptance can gently and tenderly coax us toward the horizon we are not yet ready to meet.

Rigid with indecision and unable to move in either direction we continue to resist, knowing that we must find the courage to journey on and the strength to step out into our future, away from the place we mourn but in which we can no longer reside. Denial provides space, it enables us to take time to dip our toe back and forth, retreat and try once more until we feel ready. Eventually the dawn of acceptance – that we cannot go back – rises within, our attention released and now free to turn toward the new horizon.

By natural progression we tire of just staring at the future unable to fully participate from the incapacity of no man’s land and the first stirrings of curiosity and frustration spur us onward. The nurturing cradle of denial now feels restrictive as we strain to see what’s happening over the horizon. The moment we step across the threshold separating resistance from readiness, carrying with us the comfort of knowing it will always be there to offer a temporary haven, we take our first tentative steps into a future full of fresh possibilities.

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February 8, 2015

One Marshmallow or Two? The Lost Art of Delayed Gratification

A desire indulged spontaneously offers little more than momentary, fleeting pleasure – a treat, whose value is briefly inflated before it melts with a small sigh across our memory.

That which has been anticipated, struggled over and procrastinated against carries within it our best efforts in the shape of an earned understanding. The resulting fulfillment is part of us, radiating a deep and lasting satisfaction that the sugary goosebumps of a treat can never hope to imitate.

It is more than 5o years since Walter Mischel’s social experiment with four year olds, in which they could enjoy the instant pleasure of eating a single marshmallow or wait twenty minutes and have two. Each child was left alone to make the choice. It was a battle between desire and self-control; gratification and delay. A seemingly simple tussle and yet the ability to resist impulse is a fundamental emotional skill, the foundation stone of self-control. The children who managed to wait did so by distracting themselves, demonstrating perseverance towards fulfillment of a future goal. Follow up studies showed that those who managed to resist temptation went on to lead happier and more successful lives than those who gave into it.

Our capacity to resist is under threat. Modern life teases, tempts and torments, seducing us into believing that not only must we have the latest phone, the most exotic holiday or the best job, we need to be the first. We expect to achieve with limited effort on our part – because we deserve it, don’t we? We have conformed to – and now embrace – an era of instant gratification and our ability to satiate our constant demands has become the currency by which we value ourselves and judge others, the scale by which we perceive our success. It is the market by which our economy thrives or dives, the treadmill updated from industrial 20th to digital 21st century. Gone are the days when saving up for, or working towards the object of our desire was not only necessary but character building, strengthening resolve, patience and the ability to endure discomfort and disappointment.

Patience is a word out of sync with our modern society. We are so used to our desires being instantly met, that a certain complacency sets in and we struggle to endure the discordant sensations of wanting and lack. Waiting feels an unreasonable request, we expect it not of ourselves but of others; so we complain and demand like a two year old whose needs are not attended to. The planning and anticipation of fulfillment has become the new addiction, the skin deep ‘high’ satisfying little more than a momentary whim before we’re seeking the next fix. Lasting satisfaction comes from striving, embedding our heart and soul within our endeavours, elevating the pleasure and value way beyond the instantaneous.

The art of balancing treat and toil is fast disappearing. Let’s refuse to settle for indulgent underachievement and strive for the infinitely more satisfying depths of delayed gratification.

And then enjoy a treat! One marshmallow or two . . . .

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January 18, 2015

Stove Top Coffee Pot – routinely served and savoured

Each morning I now delight in making coffee in my stove top coffee pot, an unexpected gift which has delivered into my life not just fresh coffee but a fresh routine. In an age where immediate gratification is demanded and not only the coffee is instant, routine has become an unwelcome word, something to be endured which consumes our precious time and keeps us from more engaging activity.

We associate routine with the ordinary, the familiar and commonplace. We often perceive and experience it as boring and tedious and try to complete such tasks as quickly as possible. And in busy lives there is a necessity to undertake them speedily, routine is essential for simple survival. But through the mundane nature of our toils we may discover something of ourselves. Routine is the practice of a skill which had to be courted and apprenticed, the harvest of which is the application of confident ability that enables our lives to operate like a well oiled machine. We undertake our task in the hope that it will take us to a place, some anticipated horizon, where our endeavours may be witnessed, acknowledged and the fruit of our labours enjoyed.

But there is another more intrinsic value to routine. It supports our emotional well being, our need for a reliable framework on which to hang our daily life. In times of stress we turn to an activity like ‘putting the kettle on’, the familiar routine distracts, comforts and soothes. When all around is chaos, routine provides us with a sense of control. Even those lucky enough to be released from the quotidian of formal work will establish new routines, the joy of freedom soon gives way to the need for an habitual guide to stabilize our life. The polarities of the routine and the extraordinary support each other and both are necessary to balance the scales of well-being.

The next time routine fatigue sets in, remember that it serves us well – it certainly serves exceedingly good coffee!

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June 8, 2014

The Circle of Life

Green eyes dilute with age, my feline friend conveys a dignity far greater than mine.

A pull bonded by years both knowing it will end, at least in this physical realm and time.

Preparing for what I know must come and yet, part of my destiny too.

Sharing these last hours although different than I, the magnetic tug endures, not to be parted from you.

And yet I must let you be free.

She senses my sadness, how hard to let her go but with an unspoken ‘it’s okay – this is the way it should be’.

This circle of life.

I leave her to sleep, to choose her own time,

But my desire to be near I gently disturb, gathering her weak body warm, close to mine,

her plumpness diminished revealing the curve of her ribs and contour of spine.

I drink in the sweet smell of fur a memory to recall at some distant, unimagined time.

Her purr once given so freely now comes raspy with effort but offered to reassure.

Still she gives more. My precious one.

No longer able to lazily stretch, white tummy exposed to enjoy the May sun

but lying sphinx-like a position to endure, five minutes or more.

The birds once prey now chatter and chirp, keeping a distance borne of respect.

Do they too sense her gathering end?

The pure joy of having known and shared a love.

Emotion poignant with loss, etched with privilege of witnessing life waned

and laced with the inevitable sadness to come.

The circle complete. My precious one.

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April 7, 2014

A Sense of Un-Belonging

Singapore 1966

Am I to be forever on the outside looking in? It has become a place – a feeling – so familiar, that I now fear the very thing I seek. I carry it with me and yet it doesn’t have form, this nebulous thing; I cannot grasp it, and yet I can feel it’s elusiveness. I have looked for it in my home, work, relationships and among my things. I have few items from my family home – they should evoke a warmth of feeling, a welcome symbol of my belonging somewhere but I find none, only a physical ache for something lost – no for something I’m yet to experience: an ongoing penance for daring to be here at all. It’s not my destiny, it is and always has been my reality, the outsider as one country became another and I learned to count the number of schools in different languages. Letters sent to best friends who’d formed new allegiances before the postmark had dried.

For a moment, I felt I belonged to something or someone, I wasn’t sure. It was a feeling unfamiliar despite my one score year and ten. It was only later with divorce papers in hand that I realised I hadn’t belonged at all, I’d wanted it so much that I believed for a while only to discover I’d found something different, an identity that didn’t even begin to fill the void. I’m trapped in this waiting game, on the outside while everyone else is within, strangely similar to my childhood punishment of being left out in the hallway while the rest of the family were in the sitting room with the door firmly closed.

And so I find myself on the outer edge of others’ comfort zones, kept in some kind of friendly exile as they perceive my differences. Or perhaps it is I who perceive them, me that does not know how to fit in. The roots of belonging are established in childhood and strengthen as we mature. If for some reason this fails to happen, I have come to accept, at least for me, that it will never do so. A sapling starved of essential nourishment, continuously uprooted and replanted in new territory every few years will struggle to thrive, it’s energy channelled into mere survival, unable to blossom or reach it’s full potential as a mature tree. It will never have the stability of it’s contemporaries, it’s roots exhausted by constant disturbance have little strength to weather the next storm.

Unlike the tree, I can choose my environment and find shelter from stormy weather and in the calm of my simple life I can thrive and flourish, untethered by my un-belonging, abiding by society’s rules but unbound by it’s conventions. There is a freedom to this existence from which I can emerge at my choosing. In this existence I can create my own place unrestrained by outside expectation and dictates. I’ve ceased to seek this thing called belonging – the need, the void is still there but I have learned to carry it not as a burden but like a warm coat. There is now a comfort in not belonging, a familiarity I would miss. I can finally embrace being on the outside looking in, not in judgement but with a welcome sense of reflective clarity that is borne by detachment as a gift. These are the desired nutrients for the flourishing of creativity and unfettered freedom to blossom.

Acrylic on Canvas 2014 Rebecca Pells

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Category: Emotional

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