This is a long reflection.

Scrap paper ready for grabbing and channeling thoughts. Once done? Punch a couple of holes in the paper and stick it into the ‘What once was’ is now ‘has been’ vintage notebook. Reading back on past thoughts can often bring a smile.

I won’t hide my darkness

And I won’t learn how;

Love these shadows

Or you’ll never love my light.

Tyler Knott Gregson.

These long reflections are for my own benefits really. I do these every so often. But it is good to type them out from time to time instead of writing long hand. And what better place to keep them than the WordPress blog site where I can go back and read if needed.

I put a little typewriter written sticker on one of my journals. After reading the above words, written by Tyler Knott Gregson, I wanted them to ‘stick’ around. I agreed with the ideal, and decided that, indeed yes, you can find comfort in your own shadows. One’s own shadowlands are an oft familiar return. A veritable bolt hole at times…….well, when needed. The darker shadows, on returning, don’t actually affect the senses as strongly as they once did. You can reflectively let them float around you. Allow them, comfortably, to remind you, alongside your smiles in recognition, that they were simply once a ‘major detractor’ in life. However, because you are made of steel, and sterner stuff, eventually, they diminish and become a minor. Albeit, with a mingling presence of uncomfortable, weird concerns. You have to somehow rationalise their presence in your life’s history and understand that they existed, and still exist, for a reason. Shadows are like catching smoke. They are, in reality, reoccurring ‘murmuring affective to eventual ineffective entities’ that enunciate word by word recognisable past emotion. The ones that come out from behind the door of the dark room in your mind. Emotion that was so intense, over time belongs, settles and finds itself changed. Settling behind another door and living in the next room. The now not so intense room of ‘Happy I Survived Sighs’.

‘Why are they not so intense’ you say. ‘Why?’ Because I wrote them down. Sounds naive. But reading them made sense of the conundrums. I have total Aphantasia. In other words, I have no visual ‘mind’s eye’. Recollections of a visual nature do not exist in my memory. Only greyness. No colour. No simple shapes even. Just a behind the closed eyelids blank canvas of greyness. So past events do not even fragment into ‘What on Earth made me think it was awful! Now I can reflect and see it for what it really was…..’

Events from my past are just like ragged and stranded Angels. You know they exist, but you can never ‘see’ them. Never know them for what they truly are or were.

A quick poem results in reflecting what it means to me and why I wrote these words ‘off the cuff‘ so to speak. Then a reflection of a past horse riding experience comes to my memory. Because I cannot record the memory visually, it sits there in my head with a deep unease. Your poetical thoughts can often be from past events.

Because in the past, the worrisome emotions were written down. Glory be the opportunities to use pen and ink. Gratitude, Mindful in the Moment Thought ideals, Affirmations, Reflecting for Self Care , Why these Emotions? When they were the result of written down words in journals, notebooks and scraps of paper tools that you held in your hand and they led you into the fight. Some even went on to becoming song lyrics.

‘I believe if looks could kill, I just think that they might’. They are weird observations in life’s journey that present themselves, that spin in your mind and become less challenging if you hone them into a phrase of musical tamper down words. Basically, musicians can write lyrics, attached to melodies that change perspectives of unwanted experiences. Many songs from singer/songwriters are borne from experiencing.

The dangerous journey, ending on the mountain summit’s eventual arrival to freedom from unwanted situations, is to recognise specific external and internal influential danger periods. And bringing about positive emotional control over past weaknesses. For myself? Both Mindfulness Meditating on the ‘here and now’ intentional focus regime goes alongside shaking off disturbances by simply picking up a pen and writing. Even amongst a page filled with nonsense, one simple subliminally written sentence can highlight an underlying turmoil. So both Mindful practice and the Pen are helpful. As an aside, this morning I thought of a new phrase for Mantra Mind escape. “I believe I need to use the Pen in the Den”. I like Mantras. The simplistic spoken Mindful Meditation Mantra of ‘I can’t change my past’, is also determined and relevant for my future. Recognise the shadows you can’t change and bring them into the light. But realise the future is based on hope.

‘Gone are the promises that held your hand. Leading you into the fight. ‘What once was’ is now ‘has been’. So drag yourself into the light’.

(Summers’ lyrics from the song ‘18 years was 50 years ago’).

My newly named vintage journal of scraps. ‘What once was is now has been’. Scratch on Scraps thoughts and put them to bed! Quite apt really.

The second coping element? All achieved through the written out words that recognise, on reading, that you can settle the worst features concerning deeper strangeness within your shadow mind by simply freeing them from your deep inner mind. Once written, the words sit there looking back at you. Sitting there, out in the open in there quirky script formation and doodle type entities…..they soften the emotional senses. If……actually not if!….but certainly ‘when’, the shadows reappear down life’s line and try to upset you again, you can simply repeat again the pen to paper therapy. Ultimately speaking, when recognising that ‘what once was, is now has been’, it is akin to the worrisome nature of the beasties returning, but no longer have the influence they once had over you. They become a wispy surrounding smoke intrusion and you just purse the lips and blow them away. Light a candle, recognise that touching the flame causes harm and to avoid the burn…simply blow the flame out. Then watch the subsequent whisper smoke blow away into nowhere land.

I had the elder guy Triple A check a few years ago. An NHS programme to check out the possibility of an Abdominal Aortic Aneurism. I was in a ‘Do I or Don’t I attend the scan?’ situation. Is it better not knowing than knowing and subsequently, if positive, living with worrisome knowledge that arterial rupture could happen. I attended. It was negative. But it’s good to reflect on events. A year plus back, an MRI head scan brought about the possibility of a brain aneurism. Again, subsequent deeper cerebral arterial investigation proved it to be negative. The former Triple A episode strengthens the willingness to agree to further enquiries in similar circumstances. We live. We learn.

By putting the emotions out in the open in written word form over and over again and again, it is like the fountain pen ink gradually running out in the pen. The written words becoming less dense in the inherent ink’s colour…and like the latter ink lines devoid of enough ink supply…..the emotional responses become lighter and lighter. I have lived decades. This year is to realise 70 years old. And all that was thrown at me? I survived. You will certainly survive shadowlands again too. So. As long as the shadows do not change dynamic and suddenly overwhelm because, like viruses, they mutate into different entities…..all should be okay. After all, shadows will always exist in our deeper mind. And it is good to remember that well known phrase from ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’, ‘We are not our mind’. We are onlookers who witness our own minds playing with us. We do not need to treat the internal emotional shadows with import and contain them. We are not in an emotionally driven jail. We are the owner of the keys. My keys are called ‘the visible written words’. They can unlock the emotions, keep the ones that feedback happiness and chase the unwanted unhappy ones away.

Even informational bits and bobs, written by others, and written down on paper can hide another’s thoughtful advice. ‘If you feel scattered, then gather yourself….reflect’. You can gather the words and read them out loud. ‘Why in the World would you hide your shame, when you’re not to blame!’ This I wrote last night. It was a reflection on a horse riding episode where we were given horses that reflected our own personalities and characteristics. For years upon years I had a feeling of being the butt of the joke because I was given the horse that never galloped. Albeit good humoured bantering by my friends in the riding group. Because the group were off cantering and galloping on their horses whilst I trudged along behind, it must have struck my senses unpleasantly. Because I have never ridden a horse since.

In life? In our mind? We sit, like the member of an audience, and watch an emotional dance of influential emotional parts within the stage play. If the play on stage is intrusive? Pen and paper lets you see how to get up, get out of the situation and simply find the exit door.

If the shadowlands arrive because life has suddenly surprised you with the tangible reality of actual full force negative events that do presently intrude and truly affect the little grey cells and limbic brain matter? Then inner strength becomes important again. In order to find new balance, sort out a new situation and cope to survive. Face the fear and do it anyway. There are many fear type scenarios in life. The World, currently, is very weird. The TV news screen can be simply turned off luckily. The bills through the door and social dynamics cannot. But I always try to remember. Dark, rainy weather changes to full on sunshine eventually doesn’t it. So, always believe that ‘Better’ is always just around the corner.

So. On life reflecting? Very many thoughts over the decades of Summers’ life exist. Good and bad. It’s like the equivalent of the long running play ‘The Mousetrap’, where the actors arrive on stage, and perform a fictional premise whereby a haunting presence of dark, historical mistakes is ever present. Words weave and speak out loud insecurities and deep fears. The mind? It can bring about what is simply downright fantasy…..and lies. ‘Surprise, surprise’ they say when crashing into the calm mind. Which they can do from time to time. If shadow ensconces, as if in a tightly bound spidery thought web? You self centre and dispel negative thought processes. No Mindful Mantra is adequate at times by simply stating ‘I cannot change the past’. For shadow thoughts to be channelled into the light…..it is the simple act, for myself, of picking up a pen and writing.

Whisk away the madness. Wish away the sadness. Wash away the badness. Bring along the gladness. When I wrote these thoughts, it would have been nice to add at the end….. ‘Just Pick Up a Pen and Write it ALL Down!’

Ironically? Especially picking up a ‘hard start up’ reluctant fountain pen that doesn’t want to give up its ink readily. Written lines fracture into faint presence. A word is a juxtaposition of dark rich ink lines and pale hoped for recognisable letters. So you find yourself going over the whole caboodle of sentences a second time. Symbolically? Driving the words even more home. The missed or faint lettering strokes give out a reflection in looking and stating ‘not quite good enough’. Not quite the vibe wanted. So you go back over the written outpourings, then…when it all looks more solid, it needs a victory cheer in the form of a little embellishment. Give that final letter sweep a little star or heart on the end. Or embellish the sentence with a different brighter colour. After all, you have thoughts out in the open now! So. Choose a different brighter colour and surround the impactful, rationale lettering with a comfort gift.

REMEMBER, AS A FINAL REPEATED THOUGHT……

‘WHAT ONCE WAS’ IS NOW ‘HAS BEEN’.

SO DRAG YOURSELF INTO THE LIGHT.