Getting there in your own sweet time

It might be the weather, it might be the fact we got a relatively early night, it might simply be advancing age… but we both woke up at 5.30am.

(The fact is… we’ll never know – something that the mind hates the notion of. Let go of that particular need—the need to know—and you, my friend, are winning at life. Here endeth the lesson 😆)

Anyway, we’re both up and about before Croftus minimus (who, naturally, didn’t have an early night, because does she ever?!) and she's a bit disgruntled when she finds us downstairs in the kitchen, already beavering away.

“But I wanted a cuddle in bed.”

Mum—needing little excuse to be horizontal, especially with her mussy-haired little morning Chica—agrees to go back upstairs.

Dad—slap bang in the creative flow of things at the kitchen table—declines.

“But I wanted a family cuddle! Dad, too!”

I sigh (which is not well received).

“Ok, two minutes. I’m right in the middle of stuff here.”

(Which is received even less well.)

“Oh forget it. I didn’t want a cuddle anyway. You guys are the worst!”

😤

And off she stomps.

What just happened here?

It's two Thought Systems 📦 with their own agendas.

Two minds creating stories of how ‘reality’ should be (🚩). And then having their expectations not being met.

Hers: Family cuddle, first thing in the morning. Dammit, it’s not happening!

Mine: Not wanting to be interrupted and have the effort of getting up early and getting on it with work, reversed. Dammit, it’s not happening!

Who’s is right? Who’s is true?

W E L C O M E
T O
L I F E.

But seeing this is helpful. Knowing how it works; what’s going on. It means you can work with it, instead fighting it and making things worse.

So, in this particular situation, I don’t try and change anything, or placate or manage experiences.

I get on. Right now it makes sense to get on.

And then 10 minutes later, having reached a good place to stop, it makes sense to go upstairs.

I find Croftuses medius and minimus lolling around in each others’ arms, and, fully clothed, I slide in and join the family love-in.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 ❤️

It's not just cuddles though, is it?

It’s not just this situation, it’s everything.

When the mind is faced with ‘what is’, I’d say the vast majority of the time, it doesn’t get what it wants.

It doesn’t like that, and we feel it.

We feel that tension.

Knowing where that feeling’s coming from—ego's expectations not being met; not the situation!—means we don’t have to keep going on fruitless quests to try and massage situations into a way that keep it happy.

(That way madness lies.)

So we get shook up, and we settle. In our own sweet time.

➤ My daughter got over hers quickly enough to hop straight back into bed with her mum – no Dad required.

➤ I got over mine enough to pause activities, and go and join them – work schedule be damned.

There are no rules as to how long this process takes. We might hang on to the thinking and the hurt that goes along with it, or we might drop it like a hot potato.

Again, we’ll do what makes sense, from where we’re at in that moment.

It’s all ok.

It reminds me a bit of that definition of ‘Resilience’ that I like to trot out from time to time:

(Did you see the word ‘inbuilt’ there?)

😉

Giles

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