In my moment of looking for a feeling of relief and wondering if the only place I might find it is inside a temper tantrum or by being hit by a car--when looking for the next logical step and wondering if winning the lottery is ever the next logical step--I found my Vortex on the radio.
When I was in therapy in New Orleans, I told my shrink that I should design therapy for people with ADD. I get bored a little too easily to stick with one method for more than a few weeks, and in my plan there would be exercises that the therapized person would do until he/she lost interest, then move on to the next one.
I'd been enjoying The Alphabet Game (see previous post) for some time, and made a variation in which I just go through the alphabet naming things that make me happy (lots of foods and places to visit: A is for apple pie and Alaska, for example) instead of happy emotion words (like Alignment, Appreciation, Allowing, Basking, etc.) which I'd burned out on after a few weeks. There are only so many K words, for example (Knowing, Kindness . . . Kite-like flying on a wave of good feeling?), and lack of variety breeds stagnation in my head. Boredom is not a Vortex-y feeling. Trying to come up with a new M word during a massage session, I had a client turn over before I did the back of one of his legs, and he ended up with a lot of neck work, which I hope he appreciated.
I still do the Alphabet Game during sessions almost every day--it's good for long moments of silence--but in the in-between, it was only lifting my mood so much. Say a word a few too many times and it loses its oomph.
Corralling my thoughts can be hard work sometimes, and I'd been thinking about just resting from it and turning to mindless computer solitaire games (which I do plenty enough as it is) and finding relief there. Problem is, it's not so much relief as numbness, which I'm not sure is much of an improvement over irritation and impatience.
The radio reminded me that happy thoughts are everywhere. You don't have to manufacture them from scratch. Open your ears and eyes and sing at the top of your lungs, dancing around in the driver's seat for the entertainment of your fellow commuters.
This morning I discovered that the amount of taxes I paid last year is less than what I was hoping for in my refund. Grumbling, I turned on the radio, and Grand Funk Railroad was just starting their cover of "Some Kind of Wonderful."
I don't need a whole lots of money,
I don't need a big fine car.
I got everything that a man could want,
I got more than I could ask for.
I don't have to run around,
I don't have to stay out all night.
'Cause I got me a sweet ... a sweet, lovin' woman,
And she knows just how to treat me right.
Well my baby, she's alright,
Well my baby, she's clean out-of-sight.
Don't you know that she's ... she's some kind of wonderful.
She's some kind of wonderful ... yes she is, she's,
She's some kind of wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahhh ...
When I hold her in my arms,
You know she sets my soul on fire.
Oooh, when my baby kisses me,
My heart becomes filled with desire.
When she wraps her lovin' arms around me,
About drives me out of my mind.
Yeah, when my baby kisses me,
Chills run up and down my spine.
My baby, she's alright,
My baby, she's clean out-of-sight.
Don't you know that she is ... she's some kind of wonderful.
She's some kind of wonderful ... yes she is,
She's some kind of wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahhh ...
Now is there anybody, got a sweet little woman like mine?
There got to be somebody, got a, got a sweet little woman like mine? Yeah!
Can I get a witness?
Which is why J always stands for Jessica no matter which game I'm playing. :)
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