Deep Water Flailing

It is a challenge to stay away from old habits.
Getting lost inside my head almost feels like a dream sometimes.  When I realize I am doing it again, there is a moment of clarity when I can yank myself out and into the world in the moment.  I take in the objects around me.  I remind myself to stay here, in reality.  It is very much like waking and trying to remember where you are.
And to think, I have spent most of my life inside my head. 

It is terrible during a conversation when I catch myself wandering off to far away thoughts.  I have grown fairly adept at responding to the appropriate moments, but I am not always fully into what is being said.  The lull of driving tends to start the movie in my head as well.  I am off thinking about things that have happened or that I wish would happen.  This fantasy world of mine, this place where I relive events or have conversations I should be having with real people gives me just enough freedom to survive in this world, the physical world.  But I am missing out on things that are really happening.
It kind of makes me sad, in a couple of ways.
My tendencies toward melancholy and nostalgia usually bend my thoughts toward those things that have happened which are sad or that I miss.  I run over the events time and time again, which I can't imagine is healthy and it doesn't change anything.  We can only move forward.
I don't know what is passing me by in the real world.  There are so many things going on all around us that getting lost in what goes in inside our heads lets the good stuff, the real stuff, pass us by.  It is kind of like the weak swimmer flailing around in the deep end of the lake without direction when being able to touch the bottom and enjoying the water is only a few feet away.  I don't know that many of us are strong swimmers when it comes to life.  So why would I choose to splash around in the enormity of the deep water that is my mind?  Doing so stirs up the mud and it becomes harder and harder to find the shallows where I can stand easily.  All I have to do is take a few strong kicks and I can stand on solid ground and enjoy the water all around me.  It's not easy when I am so used to flailing that it seems like swimming.  It's not easy when all that flailing has left me blind to where the solid ground remains. 
I have found two things that help me, meditation and acting.  To do either successfully you have to be in the moment, observing what is happening.  If you get lost in your head, the pieces won't fit.  When I pull myself out of my thoughts and worries and fears and fit myself into the moment as it is happening the meditation feels right and the acting feels natural.  They are reminders of what I should be doing all the time.  They are my water wings, I guess.

The mind is a vast place.  A practiced explorer may be able to view it, and all of the fears and doubts and what-ifs that live there, but even they only observe those things.  The things that live in the mind are not real unless we make them real.  The untrained mind brings to life a Frankenstein of all of the things we hide from.  It is a scary place.  By working on facing the fears and dealing with the apparitions that fill the vision behind my eyes, it is becoming less so.  Finding reasons for actions and the causes to the effects makes the water less muddy.  I begin to see a little more clearly and the more I try the deeper I will be able to see.  I would love to be able to dive into my mind and come out lying on my back, floating on the surface where the beauty and comfort that it could hold can surround me below and the sun and warmth can fill my body and vision above.  I'm not there yet, but there is hope.  The hope is what keeps me warm for now.


"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell."