Hello dearly beloveds!

Today’s topic is frustration and overwhelm, something you all have experienced from time to time. Think about being a very, very small child. Think about trying to figure out this 3-D world into which you have fallen. Think about all there is to learn and understand, and that when you ask for directions, no one understands what you said. Think about when you make your needs known, very few people get it. Think about all that is going on around you, that sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t include you, and think about how hard it is to find your place in it all.

Now you have some idea of what we are discussing here today. Did reading that take you back? Did you imagine or remember the sensations of being new to the planet and trying to figure it out, without really very much luck for the first few YEARS?

You didn’t give up. If you had you wouldn’t be here now. You didn’t surrender and say oh, let them just have their way. No, you did not. Even if some part of you did. More on that in a minute. You didn’t quit trying to make your way in the world, even if you couldn’t see clearly what that meant or what it would take, where you were going or how to get there. You kept on working at it. Sometimes you wept, sometimes you grew enraged, sometimes you had to just go to sleep or lie down for a while and cuddle yourself towards comfort.

Some of how you experience the world these days was laid down in those days, so just take a moment and draw your own conclusions.

And drawing conclusions is what everyone does, from day one. You must do it in order to conserve energy. You must do it in order to move ahead. You must do it in order to survive in the world, to remain in the tribe. more or less until the day comes you feel fit to move out on your own. But you are never wholly on your own, because your tribe comes with you, even when you make a new tribe in your own time. So, remember this, you are carrying the traditions, beliefs and conclusions of your original tribe and the tribes who came before them. So you are never alone, never new or wholly original, never only yourself. This is good news and also can be difficult to bear. So you may have noted.

When the tribe you started with in this lifetime responded to you as a child (and yes as a baby and yes in the womb and possibly in how they thought of you before you even took root and began to form materially), you drew some conclusions from that. And you formed – everyone forms – hypotheses, and tested them, and found some things out. And then you had Beliefs. And Beliefs are what your Life Map is made of, and what opens the way ahead.

When your beliefs do not match reality, you might get frustrated. When your needs are not met, you may get overwhelmed. But how you respond to frustration and overwhelm are what continue to reinforce both your conclusions and your beliefs, which, we probably don’t need to point out, are what guide your actions. (For the purposes of this post, actions include thoughts and choices.)

When you are frustrated and overwhelmed you will not make the best choices for the actual circumstances of your actual, present-day life. When you need to live your life, and you are frustrated and/or overwhelmed (we hope you see how the two are interconnected. If not, please ask in comments below.), then we suggest you Stop. Take a moment or two. Allow some space to flow into the experience you are having; allow things to slow and form a kind of gap. In that space, or gap, you will find enough respite to understand what is called for in this time. Maybe you need a longer break. Maybe you need to rest. Maybe you need to cry, or work on something else, or go pee. Maybe food is required, or friendship, or solitude or a walk. All the possibilities are inherent in that gap.

From the respite of the gap – please believe us, a gap is enough space for you to reconnect with your own deep inner wisdom, truly it is – from this respite you can make choices that you cannot make if too frustrated or overwhelmed. Think of it as the point at which you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and say OK, try again. (As you did when learning to walk, lo these many years ago, for most of you.) Or you say OK, I’m going to do something else now. Or you say hm, time for a bath and a book before bed.

It is quite normal, even after all these years on Earth, to have the same basic needs as when you first got here. The tricky bit is not to fool yourself that you don’t need those things, that respite, that love. The tricky bit is to give yourself what you need. Because now you have the power and the capacity to hear yourself and evaluate the scene and take action. Even if – especially if – that action happens to be a nap.

BlueStar

PS For those who feel lost when trying to find their way, we want to remind you there was a time when you did not read. When not only could you not read, but you didn’t know of reading, as a ting. You had no comprehension, no notion of “read” and yet you went steadily, inexorably toward it, and it became a part of you and your world at some time. You may not know where you are heading, but you will get there. And it will open up even more worlds. We promise.

PPS For those of you who are thinking now of illiteracy rates, we encourage you to do something about that if you can.