Thoughts

I attended a baseball game tonight. I was alone. There were more empty seats than occupied, so I started sitting in left field and sporadically moved around. Anyway, its the sixth inning and I'm sitting back in a seat with nobody close by, I am drinking a coke as I slowly look around and then I notice a trend. Everybody else is NOT alone (or so it seems), everybody else is chatting with a friend or whomever and this begins to fill my mind. I start to wonder how weird it is that I am sitting alone and enjoying myself, that I am actually enjoying being alone and able to take in the game and do whatever I want. I never remind myself that I came with the wife two nights ago or that I am returning with a friend tomorrow - no, the mind continues to spiral towards the worthless thoughts. This replays in my mind on the drive home and then I suddenly remember that thoughts can't harm me, only reality can - nothing in my mind was reality.

It's hard to remember this fact when the mind is churning and filling with self-defeating thoughts. The thinking continues, the anxiety escalates and all of the sudden you're sitting on the edge of a black hole. Each successive thought is a domino lined up. I try to convince myself that there are things I can do to "fix" myself, adding more and more work/to do lists which only heightens the anxiety as there is so much to do. The key is to check yourself, a virtual slap in the face to remember how you should be thinking. You reach that point where it is hard to distinguish between what you can and cannot control. What sometimes works for me is to pause, close my eyes and slowly count to ten and then think of things within my control.