Teasing out the difference between thoughts, worries, and truths.
As I write this, I am doing so to kill time. Yes, it is to help you, to express my understanding and solidary and to offer support, but it is also to distract myself. My son is at the doctor now. It is dark out, past his bedtime, and his throat hurts. In this pandemic-existence this is a scary moment. It isn’t the scariest, but it isn’t pleasant.
And so, I write.
In this moment I am sharing with you so that I can remind myself: if I tell myself that he is very sick, that is a lie. That is my anxiety telling me a story. I am going to share something very important with you:
THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOW TRUE YOU THINK SOMETHING IS AND HOW TRUE IT ACTUALLY IS.
Did you get that?
The more you believe something – even when you’re sure it’s true – the more you allow yourself to believe a lie.
Please take this with the grace and compassion I mean with all of my heart, as I lie to myself all of the time. I have been a mom for 11 years and 4 months; that is survival.
But, there are times when I am SURE that something is true and it is true and there are times when I am SURE that something is true and it is not true.
The former can be tough, as it reinforces the idea of “mom intuition” which, to me, is scary.
The latter, though, is something I am deliberate and conscious about in my day to day life.
In my moments of worry, when thoughts feel so sticky that I just can’t seem to peel them off, I tell myself to pause and notice the thing (usually a fear) I am obsessing over; I make a mental note of what I am telling myself, how my body feels, how my cognitive processes are operating, and, then, I remind myself that, at some point, I will find out if said scary thing is real or true or valid and, when I do, I must check myself.
So, as I sit here at home while my son is being swabbed for things that, for me, can feel sticky, I am taking a moment to notice. By tomorrow I will have an answer of some sort; a positive or negative culture; a quantitative value of veracity. And nothing I say or think or believe or worry about will change the outcome.
Believing that my son has COVID will not make him have COVID, nor will it protect him from it.
The notion that my thoughts will control the outcome is yet another lie. Though control is something we (I) yearn for, sometimes, it is in the relinquishing of control that you find the greatest sense of peace.
I can’t control the culture. But, I can control how I respond. Tonight, I will remind myself that I am worried and, tomorrow, when I get results, I will take them for what they are. What I can do is snuggle my son. Kiss him while he sleeps. Make sure to nourish myself with good food and give my brain and body as much rest as possible. Hydrate. Meditate. Remember.
All my love, Becca
