Hot or Cold?

 

So, did you find the button yet?

What do you mean, what button?

The one you press to make everything all right, to make the world a happier and more joyful place to be.

No, I’m not talking about that button, smutty.   

Honestly, one thing on your mind these days.  Although that is a good one to press…

But I’m getting sidetracked into thinking with a smirk.

No, the button I spoke about last week, the switch that turns the emotions off, or the bad ones at least.

All in the mind, or so they tell me.

I’m sure that’s right.  Although when the pain is so intense that the body drops to the floor from the leaden weight of sadness, I’m struggling to believe it.  Actually in that state it’s a struggle to even think.

Okay, so how do you put the thoughts of sadness and pain out of your mind when it inhabits the whole of your body.

The only solution that works so far is to indulge it, experience it in its fullness, give it the space it deserves to let itself out, and then close the door behind it.

Shut.

And locked.

Perhaps there is no button.

Thinking bigger, it has to be a door.

One that gets closed on the thoughts and those emotions causing the pain and the sadness to hurt and devastate.

That makes a little more sense.

If the emotions are so big that a switch isn’t going to turn them off, then pushing them all out the door and closing it behind them makes perfect sense.

That’s when it’s all in the mind.

But when the thoughts return to build up again this side of the closed and locked door, regenerating themselves into the deep pool of pain and sadness you know far, far too well, they can become a comfortable place to be.

Crazy, right?

Only to those who have never felt it.

Not to those who have hollowed themselves out of the pain and sadness, who have let it all go only to find there is nothing left to fill the void.

Drinking doesn’t work.

Eating comfort food doesn’t work.

The only thing left big enough and all consuming enough to fill the giant void where the pain and sadness was is … well, fresh pain and sadness.

Either that, or denial.

Denial that the one who has hurt you and caused this pain and sadness will not do it to you again.   

And again.   

And again.

So you forgive them because the love you feel for them is a warm and comforting place to be, and you deny to yourself that it will only end the same way again, returning you in pain and sadness.  And that you might like it there.

Because who on earth would like it there?

So what do you do?

This is where the strength to fill up the void with something other than pain and sadness and denial comes in.

And you have it, you know.

We all do.

We just forget that it is there because the emotions are overwhelming the body and the mind.  But with enough release of pain and sadness, with enough reminders that there are other people out there going through the same thing as you, and how you overcame it the last time, you remember.

You remember your strength.

You see that even though the hurt caused may have initially come from someone else, the repetitive way you have tortured yourself with that knowledge has been yours.

And yours alone.

And therefore under your control.

You can choose to let go of the pain and sadness.

You can release all the feelings that are hurting you, and bring some new ones in instead.

You can choose peace.

You can choose love.

You can choose joy.

Or you can choose revenge.

Ahh, the dish best served to your own liking.

Which leaves me with one final question for you.

Do you like it Hot or Cold?