Episode 5: Grace Under Pressure
The point of doing all that we do to be mindful, to be people who understand our minds and know the triggers that become catalysts to our behaviours, is not to stop feeling uncomfortable emotions. It’s not that you never cry again, and it’s not that you never experience pain again.
Uncomfortable emotions have their part to play, and many of them are natural and important for our safety and preservation. Like a healthy fear that makes us look before we cross the road, a healthy bout of remorse when you do something hurtful to another or grief when you lose something or someone because it simply means that you had a relationship and it was good while it lasted. This is all healthy yet uncomfortable.
Having good mental health is not so that you can prance around feeling nothing but laughter and joy all the time. Good mental health is so that you cannot be shaken and destabilised even at your worst moments because your mind and body are in a place to handle anything that life throws at it.
I learnt of the term “mindfulness” from my psychologist in 2019. Yes, I am late to the party, but I didn’t know that the phenomenon I called “Living in the NOW” was called “Mindfulness” by millions of people. I live under a rock.
It was when we were discussing the root causes of feeling overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood and my sense of helplessness and anxiousness that he began to remind me that there are things I can control and things I cannot control.
I had decided back then to call my therapist again, which I do when I encounter significant challenges that require support. It was just before my daughter went to kindergarten. Those sessions with him were to get assistance with separation anxiety on both my and my daughter’s behalf, and also my fear of my child being mistreated by caregivers who may perhaps not be as patient with her as I was.
It was during those moments when he said, “You’re quite self-aware, so you know what is going on.”
To which I answered, “Yes, Grace Under Pressure. Life will always present us with challenges that could break us. But I am armed with the tools to handle them. So I will take it one moment at a time and do real investigations to support or dismiss my fears. If there is nothing to support my fear, then the fear is irrational, and I have to work on its cause and not project.”
And I did just that. I investigated. I met the caregivers. I asked questions. I lingered around and watched them play with the kids. I spoke to them when I fetched her and did what it took to make me feel that she would be safe.
This is the point of this blog post. It is a reminder that if you are a healthy human being, you will experience the five natural emotions of fear, love, grief, anger, and envy. You will experience these natural emotions, and, on some days, they will go over the natural line and be toxic. Either way, if you are adequately prepared with tools, truth and knowledge on how to handle yourself or how to get out of your own mental prison, you will most likely remain graceful, stable, and unmarred by any fire that might try you.
This is why we take time out of our valuable lives and practice “mindfulness”. To be in a state of truth and to exist in the present moment is your grace! Having learnt how to regulate yourself, how to heal and take care of your nervous system, how to get out of your own head, and how to make it your duty to ensure that your body and mind are well rested and fuelled correctly – it is probably the biggest favour you can do yourself because all these things lead to quite a powerful and unshakable version of you.
You get to just thrive and grow despite the chaos in the world because the truth is that you cannot avoid troubles, annoyances, toxicity, and strife if you exist among other humans. Other people’s healing, or lack of it, is unfortunately not in your power to control.
Besides the individuals that cause unrest in your life, you also have systemic causes of unrest to deal with daily. You can avoid humans and the systems, be a recluse, and live in the mountains alone, but this is unhealthy because humans are community creatures.
The only thing you can control is how you deal with the challenges and how you prioritise your well-being. It’s about how you work with the challenges, and that requires CREATIVITY and LATERAL THINKING because being mindful and stable is to be a PROBLEM-SOLVING machine that can weed out destabilising forces(from inside or outside us).
Art and creativity have played a considerable role in this aspect for me. When I paint or write, make music and use my imagination, I get to exercise this problem-solving skill by following my instincts, inner guidance and trust in myself and the process. I get to see it be proven repeatedly that I am enough and that I can handle whatever challenge I receive. I get to see in real time that I can make something out of nothing and that I can create beauty at any time and in any place.
