Tis the Season to be Triggered...

Fa-la-la-la *incoherent shriek*

Yes it's that time of the year when the snow is on the ground, the streets are all a-blinkle and a-twinkle with lights and the shopkeeps are in a foaming frenzy to sell, Sell, SELL, then sell some more.

Which is all well and good except for the fact that my birthday is coming up this Saturday and bringing all sorts of fun things with it...the past for one.

Growing up we were never rich and struggled for middle class, and I watched my family fight over money and break down while pretending all was well during birthdays and holidays...someone crying was the mandatory minimum sentence.

And since the super fun isolation and confusion of covid and my own procrastination on working on myself and my inner critic who I've coined Bernadette after my large and in charge elementary school bully and one of the antagonists from a book I've read too many times, I seem to have plummeted to a brand new low of rabid comparison.

Let me explain.

In the shops a few days ago seeking skin care solutions for that which is our largest organ (Which has been declaring war on me since moving to a strange desert climate with two lakes.) and found after trying to converse with a vegan zoomer there was a shop nearby that may have gentle, moisturizing soap that doesn't instantly infuriate my epidermis.

So high nonny no off I did ho (I meant to write 'go' but 'ho' seems more fitting so it stays.) to this obviously quite fancy boutique with everything pretty much out of my price range and demographic and where either the shopkeep or some customer before me had farted the most potent of effluvia into the air.

Did I leave? Did I mention the powerful odour? No! Like the poor little bullied, weak, knobbly kneed girl that I am I let the shopkeep literally block me from leaving with their body (Why do they do that? Do they not realize that's a form of abuse?) and show me a nefarious amount of overpriced items as we both ignored the fact that we were both ignoring the fact that someone had obviously air *** their pants in this quite enclosed space, and it was battling the scents of whiskey and pine candles and other such twaddle to deleterious effect.

I buried my face in candles to try survive, my deviated septum making it all the so much more difficult to breathe, making a big to-do about how they were the best I had ever smelled (Which felt very accurate at that time to be honest.) and then finally made it out the door into the crisp evening air by telling them I would be back on my birthday for many items, gulping in as many deep breaths as I could without appearing obvious.

Why do we try so hard to make others comfortable in hopes they might care when they haven't earned a single bit of our loyalty? I had no relationship to this gaseous shop or others in my life but why couldn't I hold a boundary or even crack a joke (poor choice of words.) around the smelly situation? I'm battling poverty with counselling, meditation and more support groups than one could shake a stick at for years now yet there I was and here I am.

I'm doing a gratitude challenge...have posted it on here if anyone else wants to try it - writing ten things one is grateful for and why, then repeating it aloud along with three thank you's at the end of each one. And the last few days of doing this particular new challenge has me basically convinced gratitude is impossible even though I've been doing gratitude work for almost a decade and sometimes can feel so much love and gratitude for things in my life.

I think it's because one forgets that the negative is supposed to feel more intense than the positive because it's so important for the negative to be noticeable as a warning; If a siren was an ice cream truck tinkly song it may not be as powerful (For me it would be but I just freakin love ice cream.). And then that warning overpowers one's will to believe they are capable and successful and happy, healthy and wealthy.

I'm listening to Rhonda Burn and How you can Change your Life with Positive Thoughts on the Fearn Cotton Happy Place YouTube channel and trying to not roll my eyes into oblivion at the same old same old 'do what makes you happy to keep yourself safe and don't focus on the negative' but also intrigued by her comments on how our negative thoughts have been building since childhood and that something terrifying will be created to try release it, like a fever appears to burn off the bug.

So it makes more sense now perhaps why there's been such a focus on the inner child and forgiveness lately and talk about the ego, with the mind as an experience of being an individual in a material world and having it's place while also not identifying with that to the point of losing the self, or self destructive behaviour.

Here's where I want to roll my eyes because it's all so much more *** easier said than done, and progress seems so slow as to be unable to keep up with the exponential growth of negativity.

Ultimately the belief that a positive thought is 1000 times stronger than a negative one is my challenge and probably that of many others, especially this time of year...I literally have been seeing a sign into town that says 'Tis the season to be shopping' and to detach from this mentality and be aware of the difference between material and non-material experiences is the most important thing we can remain aware of and cultivating an awareness of.