All at sea

This a beautiful article I’ve adapted a bit written by Blurt It Out, explaining how if we can’t always think positively, we have the option to choose a positive action.

There is a tidal motion to what we experience. Sometimes things are great, other times they’re unsettling, uncertain and tricky. And then there are times that bob along somewhere in the middle.

When the tide’s out on the good times and the less desirable ones roll around, it’s completely natural for us to feel worn-out as we swim against the current, trying with all our might to reach calmer waters. It’s understandable that waves of not-so-nice-to-feel emotions threaten to drown out any of the more welcome ones.

If we were literally all at sea rather than these metaphorical examples, we’d be wanting and wishing with all our might, for a life raft, a buoy. We’d want a break to catch our breath and we would want a way out, a rescue.

When it’s blowing a gale outdoors, the clouds are grey and there’s a downpour of rain, remember the sun doesn’t cease to exist – we just can’t see it. We don’t ever doubt it’s there though. In times of instability, our minds can be as tempestuous as the stormiest of seas. The thoughts can be menacing, savage, murky and wild. But there’s a difference between experiencing a barrage of negative thoughts and bathing in them.

We could choose to bathe in them and let them cloud all that we can see and touch and feel or we could choose to be the sun. To create warmth, light, and beauty for ourselves. Even from within the darkness, even if it is just one ray of light.

I am not saying it is not difficult to turn the tide on the waves of negativity as they wash over us and it’s never quite as easy as just ‘thinking positive’. Rather, more a case of changing the channel to change what we see.

When the mind-mist comes, we can choose positive action. We can choose to make, to bake, to connect, to write, to read, to walk, to love, to plant, to shower ourselves gently in the things that bring comfort and warmth. So choose, even if it’s the smallest of actions.

You’ve got this, you are so much stronger than you know and you are doing marvellously.

Kim Fry
(UKSA Welfare Officer)