POSITIVE ENERGY
After days of fog, the sun broke through yesterday afternoon bringing light and colour and positive energy. Positive energy. Two words that can stand alone, yet when alone become vulnerable to negative meaning. Who wants to test “positive” for anything? As for energy, how devious can a word be when accompanied by adjectives such as: negative, misdirected or wasted? Whereas when keeping each other company, positive energy is as vast as the horizon and, as such, filled with possibility.
We need all the positive energy we can summon these days. Here in Italy the country has been divided into three covid-19 colour zones: yellow, orange and red, with red being the severest and therefore most restrictive in terms of movement.
Over the course of 3 days this past week, Tuscany went from yellow, to orange, to red. The fog arrived on Friday along with the news that as of yesterday we are basically in lockdown. I found the fog to be eerily metaphoric in that vision was limited. Colour became so muted as to be lost to grey and suddenly possibility also seemed lost along with the horizon. A pall of sadness descended in which I allowed myself to settle for a day.
Such a solitary feel, sadness, even thought in this case I was feeling sad for all of humanity. For a couple of hours I wasted energy trying to escape sadness by trying on anger. Husbands are useful for this, as are digital woes of which I’ve had a fair share lately. Wet kindling pissed me off for a couple of minutes and a leaking bag full of garbage infuriated me. Talk about misdirected, negative, wasted energy. Better to allow oneself to feel sadness once in a while for it is a valid emotional response to certain realities. Yet there is a fine line between feeling something and dwelling in it. So I moved on.
During the years when I was a practicing therapist I worked with the premise that in order to evolve we need to daily practice the three A’s: awareness, acceptance, and action. In order to change our habitual thinking/behavior we must first become aware of it by articulating it. The next step is accepting our defects and indeed the imperfection of reality itself. These two steps are essential in order to be able to take conscious action, without which, nothing will change.
In my small journey last week it took me a while to realize I felt sad, and longer to accept it. Then I felt paralyzed for a while, which is ironic in that while trying to avoid taking action I escaped into the digital world where I discovered David Toole. David Toole, who sadly died in October, had a congenital disorder that led to the amputation of both legs when he was 18 months old. Yet he went on to become, among other things, a dancer. I’m attaching a video link at the end of this post that I encourage you to watch. Talk about positive energy.
Another person who inspired me this week is Michael J. Fox, who many of you know from his acting days before he became stricken with Parkinson’s Disease, for which he has raised billions of dollars for research. It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that when one suffers a major illness or accident, or any tragedy, that one is immune to such horrors for the rest of one’s life. I thought like this after breaking my neck. Ha! Since then I’ve had sinus surgery, foot surgery to repair a severed tendon, broken a knee, a hand, and a collarbone and endured a failed thyroid plus adrenal collapse three times.
In Fox’s case, two years ago he underwent surgery to remove a tumor on his spinal cord and had to relearn how to walk, four months after which he fell and shattered an arm which required 19 pins and a plate. He says, “With gratitude optimism becomes sustainable.” Wow! And amen.
I write about gratitude a lot these days. It seems to me that gratitude is its own form of positive energy and enables us to take that vital third step – action - toward our next level of personal evolution. The steps I took this week to lift the fog of sadness were comprised of small actions which, pre-pandemic, I labeled as “chores.” Cleaning the house – grateful to have one. Doing the laundry – grateful for a washing machine. Cooking, darning, bringing in firewood – grateful that I still have the capacity.
I also, with the help of a man and his excavator, planted 3 olive trees and 3 cypress.
They are, as I write, disappearing into the returning fog. But I don’t need to see them to know that they are there, anymore than I need to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel to know that it exists.
Gratitude, Awareness, Acceptance, Action; these are the ingredients of positive energy. And, of course, love. I am grateful to live with the love of my life and we both send love to you all.
Stay safe, stay positive.
As always, Maggie
