Wild Mind — Ninaland

I wonder what my mind looks like

I think it has brilliant colors!

So I got a contract writing job and I’m very excited! They did an extensive background check on me; hopefully, they didn’t read my last post about how I stole a toothbrush. My cousin’s daughter, who lives in Australia, was like, OMG, you wanted a toothbrush that was 50 dollars! She couldn’t make sense of it. It makes me wonder if I even make sense at all. Is being stupid an American thing?

I have to make sure my brain is still intact enough to work again. The fact that I hardly remember my social security number or the 20-odd passwords I created to apply for jobs, but know my landline number from my childhood by heart, is frightening. Then people will ask me, Do you remember something I told you? Do I remember? That’s a very loaded question. Who are you again?

I mean, I don’t actually have dementia or anything, I have middle-age syndrome. My mind knows things it should forget and doesn’t remember things it should remember. For instance, I know the names of the camp counselors I had when I was eight years old at day camp at Livonia Little Tots, but I don’t remember the name of the neighbor who just moved in next door.

There should be a way to train your brain to work the way you want it to. Like when I’m trying to fall asleep, I remember all the stuff I need to buy at the grocery store, then I move on to worrying about things like money, how I’m going to have enough money to retire, then I start to think of things I could eat in the middle of the night to make me feel better.

I worry about the weirdest things, like whether the world is going to end due to a meteor hitting it. I randomly wonder if my brain farts are due to a tumor.

What if we could stop ourselves from worrying? Wouldn’t that solve most of our problems? What are we worrying about anyway? I’m worried I’ll die alone, but really, it’s no big deal. What’s the point of worrying about that?

The mind is such an unpredictable thing; it just goes and goes like the Energizer Bunny! I’ve noticed that I’m a little obsessive. I will start thinking about how I need to declutter the house to put it on sale, and I will think of every little thing that I should throw away or keep. You’d think this would be a productive thing, but it just keeps me up at night.

I need some balance in my brain and in my life. For example, when I started applying for jobs, I was doing it non-stop day and night without any breaks. Then I started writing again, and I was doing it non-stop day and night. Finally, I started cleaning the house, and I got obsessed with that. Why can’t I just do a little of everything?

I’d just like to be fabulous at life, that’s all. Is that too much to ask? I’d like to do things in moderation, but can you really expect an anxiety-ridden fool like me to be able to create peace in my life? I don’t know how to live, that’s the problem.

There’s no user manual for life, and I missed the memo on how to be normal. Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that I’m unusual; it makes me interesting. But I could just be fooling myself. It’s 6 am, and I’ve been up most of the night worrying about adjusting to this new job and wondering what I will do wrong next. So far, they have introduced me to like three different computer programs that I need to learn how to use.

Am I smart enough for all this? I definitely think there are different kinds of intelligence. I think I have mostly creative intelligence. Don’t ask me exactly what that means; I’m kind of making it up. But what I guess I mean by that is that I’m good at creating written work and lesson plans for teaching and other stuff. I’m not good at memorizing facts, etc. I’m definitely not good at math.

But anyway, as I was saying, the human mind is a mystery to me. I’m not even sure it should be controlled. But if you just let your mind go completely free, it can often focus on mundane and disturbing things. We are programmed to be in survival mode, evolutionarily. Our nature is to think negative thoughts.

So, how do we deprogram our minds so that we are not constantly in this fight or flight mode? I have no idea. I’ve considered hypnosis, but I haven’t really looked into it. The only real thing in my life that I have found that works on my wild mind is meditation. It’s not for everyone, but I think everyone should try it at least. Even for like a minute.

Just breathe and close your eyes for one moment, and I swear to god it will help. But the truth is, I have not been feeling like meditating lately, and that’s probably why I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m not sure why, after my father passed away a couple of months ago, I can’t sit with myself.

Maybe I’m afraid to face my grief. When you sit in silence, you never know what will come up in your mind. Sometimes your worst fears, your darkest pain. But once you visit that, there is another side to the mind that contains joy and bliss, and I have found all these feelings while in meditation.

They say in meditation you are not supposed to stop thinking, but you are supposed to become the observer of your thoughts. You are to lose the attachment to your thoughts as they pass by, and you realize that they are not all that you are. You are someone who has thoughts; you are not your thoughts. This is an important distinction in many spiritual teachings.

I don’t know if you are with me here, but my mind can really be out of control sometimes. I ruminate on unimportant crap all the time. Insignificant things become huge in my brain sometimes. What to do, what to do?

I feel like there should be a brain wash, like a car wash, where you can go to get rid of all the crap that’s inside there. I guess my only option is to try to think better thoughts, so here I go, out in the world, trying to be more positive and less obsessed with stuff that doesn’t matter. Will I make it?

nina