Hey, Nineteen

I don’t like this.

The thought came to me this morning while I was washing the dishes.

My mind had been slogging through some negative territory—I honestly forget now what the hell was bugging me—and I suddenly realized just how uncomfortable I was feeling.

I didn’t like this state of mind and I told myself exactly that: I don’t like this.

It sounds like something a two-year-old says when you try to feed him vegetables. Four simple words, but they were enough to get me into the present moment and away from the hostile path I had chosen.

I believe this awareness is largely due to my meditation practice. I had a particularly relaxing experience this morning and I’m slowly seeing that peace of mind is more enjoyable than the internal turmoil I typically inflict upon myself.

The holidays are officially over and now the work on those New Year’s resolutions gets real. I want to be more positive, so I’m monitoring my thoughts more carefully because the bad intentions have a way of taking over before you know it.

I saw a recent sermon by Joel Osteen that has also been helpful. Yes, I know, he’s a televangelist, and these people can irate the ever-loving hell out of me, but I like this guy.

He’s a Christian with a positive, helpful message. After eight years of Catholic school, where the nuns and priests couldn’t wait to tell us what demonic little scumbags we all were, Joel Osteen is a welcome relief.

This particular message was based on the last words of Jesus on the cross: “It is finished.”

Joel said that Jesus wasn’t just talking about His life. He was also talking about us, the people for whom He died.

Row, Row, Row Your Brain

All the guilt, shame, bad breaks, foolish decisions, all the crap that we use to torture ourselves with, well, it’s time to say goodbye and start living a happy life.

It is finished. A simple phrase--kind of like “I don’t like this.”

Of course, this is easier sermonized than said, but I’m okay with that. It’s a good direction to follow—as opposed to blundering around in the dark like I have been for so long.

I’ve been scouring YouTube lately for self-help messages to keep my spirits up and I came across the author Teal Swan, who discussed the idea of fragmentation in our personalities. We think of ourselves as one person, she said, but actually we’re made up of a whole bunch of people.

“This means that even though we call our self by one name and therefore identify ourselves as being one unified thing, the reality is that we are more of an amalgamation of fragmented parts or selves,” she writes. “We are more like a mosaic or a stained-glass window. Our degree of internal suffering is about the degree of harmony (or lack thereof) between these internal selves.”

So, for example, while there’s a part of you that wants to go out for a night on the town, there’s also that part of you that wants to stay home with a bucket of wonton soup and the latest Netflix selection, the rest of humanity be damned.

I would like to get all these various versions of myself working together, like a coxswain on a rowing team.

In my bid to get out more, I decided on Friday night to see a selection of one-act plays at the Gallery Players, a Park Slope theater company I've been meaning to check out for years. As usual, my inner introvert started complaining about the cold weather and late hours.

I didn’t argue, I didn’t try to reason with this guy. I just got ready, went out the door, took a 20-minute train ride, and had a great time. No agonizing, no worries, and all the drama took place on the stage.

I like this.