Sometimes life opens up and there seems to be nothing you can't do, nothing you can't handle. You face challenges head on and are able to overcome them with relative ease.
Take the Apollo missions as a very good example:
Apollo 1 - ok admittedly they didn't get off to the best of starts, they were supposed to try and orbit the earth, but instead a fire killed 3 astronauts during a test exercise
Apollo 2 - What goes up must go bang after 2 minutes 56 seconds
Apollo 3 - What goes up must also go bang, but this time 4 minutes 53 seconds
Apollo's 4, 5 & 6 - Unmanned, but did manage to at least orbit the earth - go them!
So when you've dipped your toe in the water, tasted success, what happens? well, the real fun can begin!
Apollo 7 - 1st manned mission - 11 days spent orbiting the earth
Apollo 8 - 1st manned lunar mission, and first time man witnessed earth rise
Ok now we're cooking!
Apollo 9 - 1st lunar module flight, 10 days orbiting the earth
Apollo 10 - dress rehearsal for the main moon landing event
Apollo 11 - do I really need to tell you what happened on this mission!!??
Apollo 12 - the 2nd successful moon landing
Now we're getting cocky! However, when you ride the waves of success, you must expect a little bump on the head to bring you back down to earth now and again.
Apollo 13 - What goes up, must eventually comes down. So you're on your way to the moon, and all of a sudden a blip in your electrics causes your oxygen tanks to explode. What do you do? Well you have no choice but to seek assistance and try to limp home the best you can using the resources available - see the movie with Tom Hanks, you'll see what I mean.
Now you have two choices here, give up or get back on the horse and try again. What did NASA do? get back on the horse of course!
Apollo's 14, 15, 16 and 17 all went up, all landed (some more successfully than others) on the moon's surface and came back to earth with the goodies.
And the real tragidy? Apollo's 18, 19 & 20 were all cancelled due to funding!!! If they had carried on with the great gusto in which they had started - can you even imagine how far advanced our space travel technology would be by now!!?? It's kind of like, well we've been to the moon, that's great, we'll stop now and do something else!! Unbelievable.
Oh, you want a point here don't you??
As has been demonstrated over these past few days, I have been riding on my own wave of success. Yes, I had a bit of a 'false start', but I carried on regardless, started to enjoy myself and metaphorically speaking, I really did feel as if I had flown to the moon.
Yesterday, due to an electrical blip, my oxygen tanks exploded, and I found myself limping back to HQ.
So what happened? You remember yesterday I was explaining about my inner 'little voice', well when it didn't get anywhere with the cheese on toast, it decided to hit me somewhere else.
My partner goes out to work a lot, when he's in, he goes upstairs to work in the office (a lot), and when he isn't working he's going out down the pub with his magic bunnies, or off to the local astronomy society or wherever. Lately, he's been a very social bunny indeed, and me? Well quite the opposite, I've been at home, not having a life, and looking after a snoring dog who insists on dribbling on the sofa (in his sleep).
Yesterday, that 'little voice' took control - I'll hold my hands up to that right now, insanity ruled. I was thinking that perhaps he didn't enjoy my company? didn't enjoy being at home? started doubting myself, feeling like a door mat, worthless, and ultimately feeling very unloved and very lonely. That's the key word here, loneliness. Imagine the 1st scene from Bridget Jones Diary where she is sat on the sofa, a bit tipsy, depressed, and singing 'all by myself' (well miming anyway). That would be quite a good picture on how I was feeling last night.
So what happened, well when my negative emotions take a hold of me that strongly, I invariably go into the kitchen, grab the first alcoholic and food related item I can find, and dwell on the sofa.
After a fairly good nights sleep, what is my perspective on my beliefs and consequent behaviour? Well frankly, I have to laugh at myself. (oh hello inner coach, were were you last night!!!). Honestly, right now, I am smiling at myself for being so darn silly! I'll address the issue of my other half now, as feel leaving this as it is would do him a great injustice.
Ever since we first met, he has always been fiercly independant, as am I ( ahem but I obviously have my needy moments!). Being rather old fashioned in his values (again as am I to a degree), his focus is keeping his head down and working like mad so that we can afford the lifestyle we choose to lead. His release from work is going down the pub once a week (to have a diet coke, maybe 2 if he is feeling really adventurous), and just relax with (almost) like minded individuals who share his passion and love of all things magical (card tricks etc, not spell casting!!). Do I begrudge him that? Of course not! Like me, he needs to have a life away from the house, otherwise things can become a tad claustrophobic. His down side is that although yes it's good to have a life away from the home, he needs to understand that it would be nice if he had a life at home as well. Time management is not (to be polite) one of his strong points, and seeing to my social needs at home doesn't appear to be on the agenda!
Hence the loneliness I suppose - it's a signal that one of my human needs are simply not being met. But now that the problem has been identified, it can also be very easily rectified.
I am an emotional eater. No, let's rephrase that, I WAS an emotional eater. Last night was a blip. The vital difference though is unlike any other 'morning after', I can actually sit down and clearly identify the real reason behind the emotion. Why is this important? Well, it now enables me to think very carefully about how I choose to respond to that emotion the next time it rears it's ugly head.
Like Apollo 13, I now have a choice. We know what went wrong and why, so now we can either put the whole mission to bed, or bring in the engineers and make sure that my oxygen tanks don't explode again - and if they do, we have a solid contingency plan in place so we can act swiftly and prevent any loss of life (or sanity in my case!!).
If NASA had stopped because of this little blip, we would never have known as much about the moon, or earth, as we do now.
So next time you have a little 'blip', call it just that 'a little blip'. No one died, you slipped that's all. The most important thing you can do now is forgive yourself, work out why things went a little tits up, plan how you're going to fight back next time the same thing tries to happen again and MOVE ON! Get back on the horse, return to your outstanding shiny self and ride off into the sunset.
By the way, I completely forgive myself for last night - and yes, I am feeling fabulous once again.
And as for my other half - oh yes, he's fabulous too! (but not the dog as he's still snoring on the sofa next to me.....LAZY!!!)
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