riding the storm out

We've had unusually tempestuous weather here in Colorado this spring. Tornados have been touching down all over the place, sometimes almost daily, which is extremely rare for this area. In the twenty years I've lived here, I remember only one tornado before this.

My mind has been unusually stormy lately, too. I spose that's not unusual at my stage of life (perimenopause). Hormones can wreak all sorts of havoc -- mentally and emotionally as well as physically.

Whatever the reason, my head has been a very bizarre place to be lately. There's a friggin' three ring circus going on in there. Stories being made up constantly. Cases worthy of a court of law are being entirely fabricated, and then argued, won, and lost.

And for the first time, I am just a little bit outside of all this action, watching the show. I am aware that the stories are fiction, not fact. This awareness does not stop me from getting caught up in the drama at times, just like I get so wrapped up in a movie that I cry when something beautiful happens to that fictional character who is no more than a projection on a flat white screen.

So last weekend, when I noticed an increasingly nasty mental storm of negativity brewing, I tried to make it blow over fast. I used all my tricks, and nothing made a dent. Weird thoughts of anger, victimization, and disconnection twisted around like tornados, gathering momentum with each whirl as I watched, feeling helpless to stop the impending destruction.

Being an energetic and action-oriented gal, I naturally wanted to act on these thoughts. I wanted to tell people off! I wanted to stand up for myself! I wanted to argue and speak my mind and stuff like that!

Thankfully, 51% of me was witnessing this rather than swirling in it, and so it directed my actions. It told me to get myself out of town immediately - into the mountains where I could sit alone on a big rock and do no harm. It told me to bring my journal, but not my computer or cell phone. No communication with the external world would be allowed from this state of angry agitation, because no good could possibly come from it.

I spent hours and hours in isolation, furiously scribbling my accusations and listing the perceived injustices being inflicted on me by various people and situations, attempting to purge them. A deer came to visit, briefly interrupting my stream of venom, but I got right back to it as soon as she moved on. Then it started to thunder, and I headed back to my car, not wishing to get drenched, thinking all of this must certainly have helped.

I got back to my car just as the first drops started falling, and realized I was STILL pissed off. I sat there for two hours, watching the storm move over me, seeing a rainbow form, and still, that dark cloud in my mind would not go away. Reluctantly I returned home, crossing my fingers that I would not run into anyone I cared about. I came home and went to my room and stayed there until I fell asleep.

In the morning, I woke up feeling normal. Nothing had happened in the outside world to shift my mood. I didn't tell anyone off, I didn't change any situations, I didn't fix any problems. But I was in love with life exactly as it is once more. I was overwhelmed with gratitide for this inescabably visceral awareness that my experience is ALL about my perception.

I imagine there will be many more days like this as I ride this hormonal rollercoaster of feminine midlife. I might be spending a lot of time in the mountains in the next decade! But I am tremendously relieved to know that truly, if I can just wait it out, it will get better all by itself, even if I don't do anything about it.