What do you do when you find yourself stuck in what Lovecraft calls the “hellish black mire”? Life is moving along at its usual pace and then something triggers your anxiety or depression. It happens to all of us. Depending on your level of sensitivity, it could be as simple as a misunderstood conversation, a car accident, an upcoming test, a layoff notice, or a misplaced accusation. Then again, it could be life threatening: some form of abuse, a diagnosis, the end of a relationship, the loss of a child. The mire does not discriminate. It reaches out and swallows you whole.
We know all the things we “should” do to shift moods. We’ve heard them all before. But when you’re mired to your thighs, movement seems impossible.
I’ve been wrestling with this the last few days and have attempted to halt the perseveration, the self-doubt, the auto-rewind conversations in my head, the haunting images, the insomnia, the constant urge to weep. To some degree my techniques worked. I’ve reached a place where today I can write. What brought me here is not of consequence; the way out is what’s important. I’ll share what I’ve tried. Change genres: I love mysteries and thrillers, but when you start getting triggered by what you’re reading or watching, switch. Avoid conspiracy theories and feeding the drama. Don’t watch the news. Don’t read horror stories on social media. Go light. Go comedy. Meditation: This is difficult at the best of times and nigh impossible when you’re perseverating; however it’s worth the work. Count each breath, use your favourite music or sound effects as background, and/or combine with visualization. Create a place in your mind where you feel safe, secure, and comfortable, and stay there as long as possible. I crawl into the branches of a massive willow tree. I love her. Another technique I just learned is to bundle your problems or fears into a sack and toss it off a bridge. Watch it sink to the river bottom and then continue on your wilderness walk. I’m considering actually writing words on rocks and tossing them into the ocean. Tapping: I’ve never done this before though my friend, who is a counsellor, often talks about using it with her clients. I googled a how-to last night and tried it. The first thing you are asked to do is define the problem. What I discovered in doing this was that the incident that brought me here was triggered by a lifelong fear. That actually helped. I wasn’t able to tap myself from 10 to 0 (the idea is to verbalize the problem as you tap through various points) but I felt lighter afterwards, so some shifting occurred. I’ll continue to tap. Go out: I am a highly sensitive introvert so going out is stressful for me (unless I’m near a traditional pub in Ireland). However, when you’re stuck in the mire, you cannot halt the internal dialogue without distractions. I went to my garden plot and then for a walk around the ocean. Being in nature is always healing for me. Passing people on the trail forced me to smile at times and cut into the constant negative imagining. Watch children play or go to a dog park. As Frankie says, “golden retrievers are living hugs”. Work with the elements: Last night I went outside in the dark and stared at the full moon. When I awoke at 2am I took my crystals outside and left them to be bathed in the moonlight. Also try candlelit baths, sweats, walking in the wind, camping, or earthing. Talk to a friend you love and trust: Very important. Holding all that misery inside gives it power. You want to diminish the hold so you can make a shift. On the same note, avoid feeding the anxiety by talking it up. Resist telling everyone your story. Instead, hang out with friends who distract you with laughter. You know who you are. Do something physical: We sit in the centre of Emotion, Mind, Spirit, and Body, so must hit all four elements. Stand up and move–walk, run, bike, swim, clean your house, plant flowers, do yoga, put on music and dance, turn up the tunes and sing, cook and comfort yourself with food. Just be careful with alcohol and drugs. As Lovecraft discovered in “Dagon” drugs will suck you deeper into the mire. Go spiritual. Whatever that is for you. Smudging with sage always brings me comfort and clarity. As well, I watched a Kyle Grey angel video on youtube last night and visualized myself being rocked in the loving arms of my angel. This sparked an epiphany. I realized that LOVE is what’s important here–receiving love and sending love–and as hard as that seemed I was able to do that. I think this moment of compassion may have created the greatest shift of all. This morning I went to church, played the drum, sang, and listened to the sermon. Oddly enough, the priest said, “celebrate and dance”.
What do you do when you feel stuck in the “hellish black mire”? Do you have any techniques that work in the moment? Any advice for pulling yourself out of the quicksand?
For an inspiring glimpse of humanity in a crisis read on:
As I begin to write this, I sit 30,000 feet in the air above the empty city of Fort McMurray. A place where for the past week my boots have been on the ground fighting the most merciless and unrele…
Source: The 88,000
Writers are by nature and necessity introverted. It takes hours of quiet concentration to sculpt images with words and our greatest conversations occur in our head.
So to stand on stage, mike in hand, and read those words aloud is daunting, but it’s also thrilling to gaze out at attentive shadows and know that people are listening to your every word.
I read from my new novel, To Sleep With Stones. You can listen to the first two scenes here.
It’s paramount to read your work aloud, whether it’s a school essay, a business email, a creative piece, or a love letter. Yes, it will help you catch the errors, but there’s more to it than that. Each phrase is music in the reader’s head, directed by tone, punctuation, and pauses. The only way to ensure the rhythmic flow is to add air and curl your tongue around those syllables. If you stammer or run out of breath, the reader will too. So, always read aloud, whether it’s in the privacy of your home or in a space of supportive listeners.
Thank you to my friends who supported me, to my daughter who calmed my jitters and recorded my twelve minutes, and to the organizers of this event.
English language and literature lover, John Kelly is celebrating the death of Shakespeare (400 years ago this weekend) by reading his entire works. And to add even more Shakespearean meaning to his life, he and his wife just arrived in Oxford. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.
via April 2016 – Shakespeare Confidential
In the late 13th Century, our ancestors created a word for people who were believed to go insane due to changes in the moon’s cycle. Lunatic. Derived from the Old French word lunatique, and late Latin, lunaticus–folks could be moonstruck during a full moon, when changes in mood and temper precipitated all kinds of erratic behaviour. In 1824, Britain even passed a Lunacy Act, which stated that people often went mad during a full moon.
Long before that, our ancestors knew that the moon was a powerful sacred entity, something to be watched, worshipped, and admired. Associated with dreaminess, the goddess, and water, Luna is a feminine entity whose shifting cycles mirror our own.
Because of this, witches have long been associated with the full moon. As have werewolves. Lycanthropes. Her bold female presence had the power to transform a man into a terrifying creature–by day he is man, by night he hunts man.
http://solarisastrology.blogspot.ca
So, does she really make us crazy?
Police, firefighters, and hospital emergency staff, often claim that on a full moon the crazies come out and they are run off their feet. Is this just another urban legend or can the moon really turn us into lunatics?
In 2007, Dr Michael Zimecki of the Polish Academy of Sciences revealed that scientists have discovered physiological evidence of what our ancestors have always known. The moon affects us in a myriad of ways. In short, it messes with our hormones:
The lunar cycle has an impact on human reproduction, in particular fertility, menstruation and birth rate. Other events associated with human behaviour, such as traffic accidents, crimes, and suicides, appeared to be influenced by the lunar cycle…At this stage of investigation, the exact mechanism of the lunar effect on the immune response is hard to explain. The prime candidates to exert regulatory function on the immune response are melatonin and steroids, whose levels are affected by the Moon cycle. It is suggested that melatonin and endogenous steroids [which are naturally occurring in humans] may mediate the described cyclic alterations of physiological processes. Electromagnetic radiation and/or the gravitational pull of the Moon may trigger the release of hormones.
How were you feeling two nights ago as the April full moon struck? Were your hormones in a tizzy? Did you see anything odd? A flash of teeth in the shadows? Can you even remember?
Reading Stephen King’s 1991 article “The Symbolic Language of Dreams” blissed out my writer’s spirit–that seed deep in my soul that ruptures occasionally when watered with truth. This phenomenon occurs rarely and signalled that the man had something to tell me.
Stephen King.
photo: theguardian.com
I remember reading Salem’s Lot in the late 1970s. It was the book that turned me off horror–not because it was bad. Because it was sinister. We were living in rural Ontario at the time, and my husband, a musician, was on the road three weeks out of four. Our farm, set well back from the road, was less than a mile from the old Salem Cemetery.
So, I closed King’s books.
Ironically, I’ve watched movie versions of those books over the years: Misery, Hearts in Atlantis, Carrie, Stand by Me, The Green Mile, Dolores Claiborne; and I love Haven so much I’m ready to relocate clear across the country. But books are different. Perhaps because the images emerge from our own imagination … words perch at your fingertips, thirsting for a stream of blood, an opening where absorbed through the flesh and synapse, they become real.
Yes. Stephen King had something to tell me. So I opened the cover of Salem’s Lot and began again.
What did I learn from the Master? pacing: keep the reader in a slow pant so by the time you hit the climax they’re craving it like a drug detail: slow it all down by painting graphic pictures with your words heroes are not always leading men. In Salem’s Lot, the unlikely four who take on Barlow, the vampire, are an elderly English teacher, a young novelist, a doctor, and a twelve year old boy who makes models of monsters. allow your eccentric beliefs to emerge and flourish. The following dialogue from Salem’s Lot reflects a personal belief that nonhuman objects can take on the emotions of a human and certain people who are sensitive can feel it:
“Probably I was so keyed up that I hallucinated the whole thing. On the other hand, there may be some truth in that idea that houses absorb the emotions that are spent in them, that they hold a kind of… dry charge. Perhaps the right personality, that of an imaginative boy, for instance, could act as a catalyst on that dry charge, and cause it to produce an active manifestation of … of something. I’m not talking about ghosts, precisely. I’m talking about a kind of psychic television in three dimensions. Perhaps even something alive. A monster, if you like” (42).
Joseph Campbell, another mentor, says that if you are attracted to a writer, read everything they’ve ever written, for therein lies a secret worth realizing. Next up: Stephen King, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, 2015.
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