Ups and Downs

Last week I told you about the garage sale where I found the Magic Bullet bargain, and I neglected to tell you about my other purchase – the trampoline!

A really big trampoline is now standing outside the house, and I absolutely LOVE jumping on it… It’s so much fun! Feels like being a kid again, and I can just keep on bouncing on and on and on…My new trampoline - Yeepppppeeee!!!They say the health benefits are immense. As most physical activities, merely the fact that you move your body around is good in itself. Add to this the fun factor that makes you want to do it over and over again; the varying gravitational pulls that are experienced through the bouncing process; the minimal to zero stress on joints (that are subjected to some stress in a lot of other aerobic activities) – and you get some fitness, detoxification, improved immune abilities, all happening by bouncing off the trampoline! Magic indeed!

Bouncing up and down. Exactly like what life is all about.

Lately I’m mainly going up: seeing beauty (MAGIC) everywhere I go. Staying joyful and happy in the face of difficulties and challenges.

However I sometimes experience times when I feel DOWN.

Times when small and perhaps seemingly insignificant external situations will drag me to the realms of impatience, annoyance, disturbances, and even further spiralling down some heavy negative emotions.

I wrote about different ways of dealing with struggles HERE.

Some people say that having negative periods in your life – “DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL” – are an important stage in growing and developing spiritually.

I’m not fully convinced yet.

In my experience – which is influenced by things I have heard/read/experimented with – I can see that the reality around me is always a mix of “good” and “bad” situations. And the labelling of “good” or “bad” is completely subjective. It’s influenced by my past and by my thought processes, by my expectations and by my subconscious AND conscious decisions. Nonetheless, I’m still labelling my experiences.

I don’t try to be objective – I don’t know if I can ever be – I am part of this world and not an observer of it.

When I’m in a “good” state of mind, the tendency is to keep on focusing on all the other “good” things around me. I can still see the negative things around me, and they just don’t seem to get my attention. When I am on an “UP”, I am fully committed to enhance my “good” experience. I am intentionally being an appreciative, grateful, loving, caring, joyful, smiling human being. I enjoy this tremendously!

On the other hand, when I’m experiencing a “DOWN”, I tend to focus on the “negative” situations that are around me, and lo and behold! As if to prove me I’m right, all of a sudden many situations around me are “BAD”.

If this is my belief system, meaning, that “bad” situations are only bothering me when I’m in a “bad” mood – then how come I experience a bad mood to start with? If I’m on a positive stated of mind, and everything around me seems positive and bright, why would anything make me feel lesser-than-optimal?

My conclusion is that it is almost entirely an internal process.

Something within me has a NEED for a bad experience.

Maybe those bad feelings have accumulated within me in the past for some reason or the other, and now they are searching for opportunities to express themselves? I haven’t worked this one yet.

In any case, I do have my ups and downs.

Mostly UPS lately, and yet, I go down as well.

Some people have a dream of themselves flying.

In my dreams, I simply take a very small leap into the air and stay suspended – vertically – in the air. I don’t fly, I’m not even far away from the ground, I just easily and naturally keep my feet off the ground and go on with my life. Happily and joyfully.

Ok enough with this seriousness about ups and downs…

It’s time for me to jump on my trampoline again – in the rain – I gotta run!!!

Comments

[neomi]

have fun with your trampoline.