"Stories are pointillistic paintings in text, not slabs of paint slapped on vast, plain walls." I just read that in the intro to a book about using a clever piece of software for writers, but it clicked with something else that has been banging around in my head the last 24 hours or so.
Memories, the things that create your own story of your life, are like those bits of pointillism as well. (I guess you have to call them "pixels" now, don't you?) But if you just focus on the little dots, you don't get to see the whole picture.
Thoughts drive feelings, and vice-versa. I've struggled with multiple minor health niggles recently, which when aggregated have knocked around my usual aim of equanimity. The lack of well-being somehow triggered a string of memories, about a collection of bad things I have done in my life.
Believe me, it wasn't hard to find a bunch of them. That process has a fair chance of either starting or exacerbating a downward spiral, where you end up getting really down on yourself and in all probability further lowering your physical well-being too.
The only way I managed to dodge that next slide into the spiral was to retreat into what was going on right now. I was walking to the station to go and see the unveiling in concert of the Australian Chamber Orchestra's new Stradivarius – how could you feel bad about that?
It was a bit of a diving catch, but enough to escape a further descent into negativity. One of my gurus, Tara Brach, says we are Velcro for bad and negative thoughts about ourselves, and Teflon for good and positive ones.
While there is no doubt that I have done plenty of bad things, they do not have to define who I can be now. I am pretty sure there are other pixels which would hopefully join up to show a picture of countervailing good things I have done, and which help to adjust the karmic balance.
So if you get assaulted by the bad vibes of your past, or even your present, maybe you can stand back, unhook the Velcro, and look at the whole picture. You are bound to look a lot better on the big screen than in that little slice of negativity you have been watching.
I'm sure you may have done stupid things that turned out wrong, but that doesn't equate to being bad. And I love tara's quote - it reminds me of a line from Indigo Girls' Closer to Fine - darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.
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