Calling my inner apothecary
My inner apothecary….
Apothecary? Are you sick?
More likely, sick at heart. As my Yiddish forbears would say, “Just let me kvetch (complain) for a moment and I’ll get on with it.” Here we go…
I’ve never done well with funhouse mirrors.
A funhouse mirror?
Oh, you know. Distorting mirrors. Found in the traveling carnivals many of us explored when we were kids. (Oh, come on, you must’ve experienced at least one funhouse mirror, somewhere?) Those disorienting mirrors that make our bodies “look short and round, long and tall, or twisted and squiggly.” Geez, staring into those confounding mirrors, I’d become downright dizzy and have to skedaddle right out of there.
You kinda get the feeling I don’t like being disoriented?
Kvetching mostly done with. Waking up disoriented, funhouse mirror-style, what’s real and what isn’t - leaves me feeling sick at heart. I mean, do you like waking up, feeling sick at heart? Ixnay to letting the world’s chaos, on my shoulders, and in my heart, be the only tea leaves I read today. Where’s my power, my inner agency, my “I deserve to experience some level of wholeness now?”
I’m certainly not forgetting the chaos around me. I’d be hard-hearted, if I did. Peering inward, however, for self nurture, can bolster my spirits, allowing me to spread bits of light and wholeness to others around me. Access to our inner apothecary (you’ve got one too!) can be incredibly sustaining.
Ok, ok, I get the drift here. You don’t like feeling disoriented by a world of funhouse mirrors. You do want a sense of agency when feeling dizzied by the carnival of chaos around you. Right? And this inner apothecary thing?
Whoa, I don’t have all the answers, folks! My spirit bolstering inner apothecary will look different than yours. Nonetheless, I’m more than happy to share some of my, as they say in apothecary terms, generic interventions. Cheap, cheap, and readily accessible just because we’re all human.
Like one of those four letter words. Nice. People tend to think that being nice to others is relatively inconsequential. No, no, no! Research (go Longhorns at the University of Texas) shows that those who receive our niceness consider the gesture significantly more meaningful because someone did something nice for them. Unasked, mind you. The power of being seen. Unasked.
Who woulda thunk, going the extra mile and offering niceness to others, is so spirit bolstering? Best of all, the boomerang effect comes into play. My chosen epidemic of niceness bolsters my spirits, too. Yep, I get high from being nice to others. (No, no, please don’t spread the word that Jan gets high!)
Pretty cool, eh? Disorienting funhouse mirror of the world I live in, you are now in abeyance. Feeling sick at heart has lifted for the time being. My inner apothecary comes through again. Whoa, whoa, what the heck is in your, dear readers’, inner apothecary? Time to take a look?