A Healing Within OR Back on Form

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Not the least of human concerns around the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, is mental health; many if not most of us are stressed out either by social distancing and not being able to see family and friends, money worries for not being able to work, and let's not forget the stress grief imposes on us whenever we lose a loved-one. We all must find a way of alleviating stress if we can hope to survive the pandemic as much the same person - if not better and stronger, mentally if not physically  - than we were before it struck.

An actor friend once described how when he takes on a character it takes him over to the extent that he becomes that character and all but loses sight of his own self. It occurred to me that much the same might be said of stress; it takes us over and we can't see it because we are it, and lose sight of what is happening to our natural selves.

From time to time in the blogs, I have referred to a bad mental breakdown I had in the 1970’s, just a few years after my mother died. I was still in my 30’s, and a psychological mess for all kinds of reasons. It may be an overworked metaphor, but true enough to say I was drowning in a sea of confused and conflicting  feelings that had less to do with being gay than a sense of failure as a person, again for more reasons than I could begin to define. To make matters worse, there was no one in whom I could even begin to confide and there are limits to how anyone in a state of crisis, as I most certainly was, can cope with it on their own.

Inevitably, mind-body-spirit lost not only the ability to communicate in any positive form, but also the will to survive.  I experienced a complete mental breakdown with far-reaching consequences; in the short term, these were pretty dire, but in the longer term they saw me emerge a stronger, more focused person. I lost my job and did not work again for nearly four years. It was a terrible time and I would not have survived but for the support of some good friends who showed me the way back to Hope where all there had been was Despair; the rest was up to me.

Thankfully, mental health issues carry less of a stigma these days. Even so, the mentally ill person has not one battle on his or her hands but a series of battles. We win some, lose some, but practical as well as emotional support is needed before innate survival instincts start to kick in and a glimmer of positive mind-set appears at the outer edge of an all-devouring Black Hole; it is called motivation, and more often than not it is triggered by the return of a much missed sense of humour. 

“If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

Fortunately, once rediscovered, I have not lost my sense of humour again since; it has helped me through 6+ years of coping with prostate cancer, inspired me to learn to walk again after a bad fall in 2012, and I dare say it will see me through an impending operation on my infected elbow and subsequent stay in hospital.

Religion does not have a monopoly on spirituality; never underestimate the human spirit as it can help us overcome even the worst life throws at us ... if we but let it.

A HEALING WITHIN 

Weary of fumbling

through a maze of ugly shapes;

nothing beautiful

to be seen or heard even

by the inner self,

its default to a positive mind-set

left for dead under

a mind-body-spirit anaesthetised

by helplessness, 

as in up against huge waves

of negativity,

no existential surfboard, tired

of having a pathetic dog-paddling

pass for progress

World, acknowledging me

party to its ugliness.

bearing down on human senses

day after day

on the early morning commuter run;

a cacophony

of buses, trains and people anxious

to be on time

for places and faces they would prefer

to avoid, but needs must

as some ambivalent ethos drives

the human engine beyond its limits

with no regard for whose, where, why
or consequences 

World, reconnecting me

(slowly but surely) with the beauty

of Below Surface,

fishes passing by without tossing

judgemental glances,

sharks causing a stir on the look-out

for sustenance,

not a fast buck to line the pockets

of designer gear

intended to impress or intimidate;

splendid rainbows

among coral spewing beer cans

along with other evidence of human

complacency and waste

Suddenly,

a so-weird glow of crabs and starfish

on the ocean floor

opening the inner eye to tales

of the unexpected

coursing the blood of living creatures

great and smell,

alerting us to danger, even death,

but also the wonders

of creation among which the greatest

has to be life itself,

its delights as well as hardships

around every corner if only by way

of ‘no pain, no gain’

Lungs bursting

with no less self-doubt than before,

but tempered

with hope of finding a kinder world

than I had sought

to quit without notice like a tenant

in high arrears

or that square peg in the round hole

of a workforce,

unwilling to face the situation

head-on, imagining
devils with human faces,

the easier to find excuses for opting

out of the damn scrum

On home ground,

concerned voices and helping hands

reaching out to me

to clutch, not as one all but drowning

but as someone

encouraged to restructure a whole

whose parts

have broken loose from each other,

need reconnecting

and (still) reshaping into a form

least likely to fall prey

to human frailties for staying focused 
on evergreen life forces

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020