The art of avoidance

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Woke up this Friday feeling like I’d run a marathon. I put out my greenhouse yesterday, built it in my living room like some sort of drug den, then carried it outside yesterday, made space for it, dragged some big old plant pots about just standard gardening but after a bought of not feeling my finest, I have ME, it sort of knocked me for seven. To those not from the Uk the terminology I believe comes from being out for a week or 7 days.. is anyone knows the origin, my Alexa up is never sure, add it below (read Keli’s comment on this).

Regardless I had woken up sore and tired, then messaged my local garage as some little thugs decided it was fun to break my wing mirror off, downwards so that the body of my car was dinted too. I immediately thought of coffee, then the sun beamed in my room, the garage messaged back to bring the car in today to evaluate the damage, a friend wrote to me beaming with pride for her kids presentation skills.. btw did you know the Camelion lives between 3-4 months, the shortest life span of any four-legged animal to date?.. I thought of the super sunny warm mornings waking up to the sun beaming in through my yellow curtains and felt so so at peace, feeling the energy, thanked my local garage in my head for looking after me so well and my friend for her continuous friendship like so many others in my life and how in all this I still managed to philosophies on just how short life is, more so for some, than others.

After driving over to the garage, I brought them some lettuce I’d grown from seeds.. side story, we exchange veg yearly though they deliver theirs with a great big bag of compost too, total kindness.. yes.. they are absolute diamonds! They ordered a new wing mirror today, I found out that mine is actually heated?.. the learning never stops, taped mine back up for me today and I was home ready for that coffee in less than 30mins, full of gratitude for their friendship and our mutual loyalty.

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Do you know how many times I thought about how tired I was feeling, how slow I was walking today? Not once. My focus was on the feelings of gratitude, love, friendship, inspired by what I’d learnt so far and it wasn’t even 11am. The art of avoidance isn’t about not thinking about the pain, the slow body, the sore muscles.. it’s about thinking elsewhere to fix it.

If we focus on all the bad things kicking off in our life, how could we ever expect to feel better or good? Your focus is on negativity, feeling tired, blue, lonely.. how could we not feel that way while we are constantly thinking about them? It’s impossible!

We can’t stop our brain from thinking.. it just thinks.. but avoiding thinking about all the negative situations that cause the negative emotions in you, is more about management.

The movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, had so many funny scenes. Typical RomCom but with a complete cultural clash which reminds me so much of my own nomadic beginnings and how I‘ve had to adjust to the places i’ve lived in with, sometimes, extreme diverse cultures. One line thats popped into my head was when Toula, the young female protagonist, is talking to her mother about her strict fathers ideas of women not working.. the mother says,

Let me tell you something Toula; the man is the head, but the woman is the neck and she can turn the head any way she wants.

Sexist issues tackled in this movie the way Maria the mother navigated a modern day daughter around her traditional set up was to make her husband believe it was his idea in the first place.. much like we should be the neck to our brains.. and navigate it to the good stuff, happiness, contentment, peace, love, fun and get it to believe it is it’s very own idea of positivity.

Tenuous link I know but I just wanted to get that quote in because I love it! Btw this movie in no way represents modern day Greece, for the record. Nor was I talking physically going all Exorcist here doing a 360 with your head. It isn’t about controlling your thoughts which you can never do on another human being (certainly shouldn’t) or on yourself, because when you’re on a spiral of doom it’s nigh impossible. It’s about directing your thoughts, interrupting the negativity as many times a second or a day as you notice the negativity come back up and bring your thoughts onto a different ‘highway’ going somewhere far more pleasant, more constructive and happier than where you are now. I suppose this should be called the art of brain management.. but I also wanted to talk about the other type of avoidance.. avoiding change.

This sort of thing blocks me and anyone else from progress whether progression is from feeling down or lonely to moving jobs, homes, getting in a relationship, addressing your feelings, etc.. Nothing is quite as straight forward always to just think, ‘what have I got to lose’ and jump anyways. But a lot of the times it IS that simple and we just put up barriers in our heads, our frontman to negative feelings we harbour from our own issues from our past. If you are having a negative emotional reaction to any situation in your life you need to reevaluate where this comes from and think about it in the position of change.. feelings of abandonment in childhood can spark up the same when trapped in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy but it’s that fear of being alone that keeps you from change. You, preventing yourself from change (most of the time, not always).

If anyone’s looked up at the heavens give or take two days ago pending which part of the world you live in, it‘s the closest the moon has orbited Earth this year, teamed with a lunar eclipse all in the sign of Sagittarius you’ll be looking at the art of avoidance in the spirit of throwing caution to the wind, the feeling of adventure and spur of the moment decisions.. now is the perfect opportunity to put a full stop on certain issues you’ve been dealing with in your life and focus on the good times rolling. Spontaneous as Sagittarius are, they are also full of wonder and curiosity for the world with a life long love affair for change.

All of this adds a lighter feel to your problems with potentially sudden transformations and change with it.

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We will all do well to direct our head full of wisdom towards a more positive focus, avoiding our focal point on the dark, heavy and negative and bringing it onto lighter, better times a-head! Be the neck and after that be open to change and allow happiness and love into your life.

Happy Friday! (& bank holiday weekend to those in the Uk!!),

Love & Light☀️