and I'm friggin' sick! On the bright side, my STBX gave me some Chrysanthemum (sp?) and dried dates to boil up into a drink to help my lungs. I actually went over to her place one night just to sit with my family. The worst thing about being sick is being by yourself with no one to share your misery with. Actually, I wanted to borrow an old computer but STBX said it wasn't working but invited me to stay for dinner. What I hate most about being sick is how easy it is to ruminate about all the dark things in your life. In my case, it's easy enough to ruminate when I'm well but when sick it can be the World Series of Rumination! At least things like sketching keep my mind occupied. Why is it so easy to ruminate? I read that human beings like pain to be predictable rather than intermittent and, therefore, we will create pain because it feels comfortable. The unknown is what really makes us uncomfortable so we'd rather be in pain because we know it. That's nuts!...but probably correct. I also read that worrying is a way that we tell ourselves that we're taking action with a problem. Even if there is nothing we can do we tell ourselves "hey, I'm worrying about it" and that feels like action, like we're taking some kind of control over the situation (where there may be no way of really taking control). We also fool ourselves into thinking that all our repetitive thinking is somehow "problem solving" or "processing" (My wife used to love to process...and process...and process...you get the picture and unfortunately I was sucker enough to listen. But if I ever said "why don't you do something about it" she'd reply "I am, I'm processing"...yah, OK.) Anyway, back to that wall I was staring at. It's all part of mindfulness, being present with...the wall.
