Hello, welcome to another episode of “what did I do these days?”, today is Thursday week 8. At this point, I do not even know how to start my blogs anymore. Maybe it is time for some content repurposing from the earlier ones.. I’ll come back on that.

I can hear the gears grinding in all your heads… What has she been up to? What has been too loud?
Well, quite simply answered: my brain. The voice in my head has been screaming for way too long. 

So let’s go back a bit. 
Yesterday was an incredibly insightful day and one I have been waiting for. At the same time, it did not go the way I planned. 
Yesterday was an emotionally draining day that then immediately got the attention it needed. There were some challenging things happening in the family that really got a chokehold on me. I ended up talking with my mother for a solid 30 minutes while I should have left those 30 minutes ago. I had to drive by a friend, with Mc Donalds, to pick up some late birthday gifts, to then drive to therapy. Unfortunately, due to the delay, I was late at my friend’s house, giving him his food, to immediately rush to therapy. Now, the odd thing was, while I was stressed and emotionally drained from everything that had happened, I was able to eat my take out in the car… Something I did not expect. This again, was something to be grateful for, even in a day where the world seemed against me. 

Yesterday was my first therapy session in about 2 months. I was not able to go one month ago due to me having the flu, it had to be moved a month. I cannot tell you how happy I was to be able to see my therapist again, I felt rejuvenated the second I walked into the room. And even though I am not comfortable sharing the ins and outs of my therapy sessions, there is one thing that stuck with me that helped me tremendously. 

To paint the picture: I go to a licensed hypnosis-therapist. While it sometimes can be just a regular consultation like you see in movies, most days we try to tap into my subconscious to look for answers when I feel like I don’t have them.

And this session was very frustrating and then extremely rewarding. 
I was not able to truly relax during the session. My breathing was laboured and stressful – especially with hay fever – and I could not calm down my brain. Eventually, after spending significant time on calming myself down physically and mentally, there was this one image I wish to share.

Now imagine:
Every time you feel like you need to do something, or someone asks something, or you want to remember something, it creates a little file cabinet in the space in your brain. And all these file cabinets keep your thoughts in place and “organised”. Now imagine that all those file cabinets keep piling up vertically (going up). One after another keeps being added. Now, remember, they are cabinets, they will still keep the information organised inside.
Yet, all those cabinets keep piling onto each other, creating this mountain of information that you cannot reach, and can fall over any second. 

This was the image I saw in my subconscious. Tiny old me, standing in front of this mountain of tasks, wishes, and information. I was waiting for it to bury me. 
But why must those cabinets pile vertically, when they can go horizontal? 
I like to think of the “inside” of my mind as our universe. The dark, empty void, that stretches on forever. There is an unending amount of space to keep the information. It is simply up to me to choose how I stack it. 
Therefore, I changed the cabinets. I arranged them horizontally. 
All of a sudden, there was this ocean of information that I could acquire at will. It was within my reach again. I just might have to walk a little longer to reach the cabinets that are further away, but that is fine. 

It was this change in perspective that somehow made me completely calm down, and almost go into a type of trance. I felt high at the end of the session, and was truly relaxed when I went home. I felt like I had gotten some mental space back. 

Now, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t immediately test the waters the second I was given access to them.
So today, I tested the waters.

My mother really wanted to go to the local clothing shop and asked me if I wanted to come along. 
I ended up having a client meeting beforehand, and then traveled with my mom to the shop. It was a fun outing! It was one of the first moments where I was enjoying myself again. No mental pressure, no “as long as everything will go alright”. Simply me enjoying going through the clothing racks. 

Mom ended up buying 2 dresses, but I was not yet satisfied. I was craving a snack, and was not planning on waiting until we got home! We all know when mom says you have snacks at home… We don’t do that…

So! I suggested to get an ice cream cone in town! 
Now again, who cares? Well, guess what, I do! Because it is again a “meal” in public that I was wanting to test. And BOY, a test it was.

We ended up getting our ice cream, everything was dandy. 
However, there were a lot of loud children screaming, playing, and running less than a meter from my face. 
In general not a vibe, but especially not when you are trying to learn how to eat again and live in the moment… I do not require outside voices to scream at me, I know for a fact that my own mind can scream quite well.

Yet, I was able to eat the cone without issues. Of course, I was slightly irritated and a little tense. I had a moment of “is everything going alright?” and a moment where I contemplated whether I could stealthily make one of the kids trip. Of course, I did not do anything like that, but it crossed my mind. 

But most importantly, it was another moment of success. One that proves that I am on the right track and am starting to get a little bit of control back.
When our ice cream was done, I immediately wanted to leave, but in this case my mother had the exact same wish. 

Overall, I truly feel like I am living in my own research. The amount of experience and knowledge that I am getting and testing simply because it is me who needs it is a blessing in disguise during this whole individual project.
Funny how life works sometimes…