The other day I was in a foul mood when I was unexpectedly doused with cold water. My trusty behavior auto-pilot had taken over the mechanics of preparing a shower while I focused on fuming (I can’t even remember what I fumed about). I hadn’t realized that I was in the shower before any water was running and that the innocent, almost insignificant little switch that sends water either to the shower or to the faucet was in the shower position. Minor details compared to the catastrophe roiling in my brain. Cold water on.
The sudden change in skin temperature shook me out of my self. I forgot I was angry. How can you forget anger? When doing it, I feel that it’s something that “I am.” Maybe not. Maybe it’s just something I think about for a while, and can be distracted from, like any other thought. Cold water works well. The only thing I could do was laugh at my ridiculous state–cold and wet because I made a simple mistake, literally blinded by the trifling notions running around in my head.
My normal environment seems to collude with my moods by allowing my auto-pilot to work well enough so that I can concentrate on being a grouch (I suppose I could think about lovely things, but it never works out that way).
The cold shower bumped me out of a groove. So I’ve been trying to actively seek ways to jiggle myself free of grooves. The problem is that behavior jiggles are by their nature already outside the groove.
So I’ve created a jiggle groove whereby I try to change something in my environment or something in my internal mindscape. So I now look for something different to do just for the sake of doing something differently. So rather than resisting the invitation to go a boring event, I try to see it as an opportunity to get jiggled. Doesn’t always work, but often enough there’s something new that nudges me in different direction.
I’ve explained this idea to a few people and I get generally the same response: If I wanted to do something different, I would, and my problems are real, they can’t just be jiggled. So it would seem that the grooves are deep and our sense of individuality is somehow attached to our grooves. Oh well, I may take to carrying a bucket of cold water around to share the joy of jiggle.
The Power of a Cold Shower
The other day I was in a foul mood when I was unexpectedly doused with cold water. My trusty behavior auto-pilot had taken over the mechanics of preparing a shower while I focused on fuming (I can’t even remember what I fumed about). I hadn’t realized that I was in the shower before any water was running and that the innocent, almost insignificant little switch that sends water either to the shower or to the faucet was in the shower position. Minor details compared to the catastrophe roiling in my brain. Cold water on.
The sudden change in skin temperature shook me out of my self. I forgot I was angry. How can you forget anger? When doing it, I feel that it’s something that “I am.” Maybe not. Maybe it’s just something I think about for a while, and can be distracted from, like any other thought. Cold water works well. The only thing I could do was laugh at my ridiculous state–cold and wet because I made a simple mistake, literally blinded by the trifling notions running around in my head.
My normal environment seems to collude with my moods by allowing my auto-pilot to work well enough so that I can concentrate on being a grouch (I suppose I could think about lovely things, but it never works out that way).
The cold shower bumped me out of a groove. So I’ve been trying to actively seek ways to jiggle myself free of grooves. The problem is that behavior jiggles are by their nature already outside the groove.
So I’ve created a jiggle groove whereby I try to change something in my environment or something in my internal mindscape. So I now look for something different to do just for the sake of doing something differently. So rather than resisting the invitation to go a boring event, I try to see it as an opportunity to get jiggled. Doesn’t always work, but often enough there’s something new that nudges me in different direction.
I’ve explained this idea to a few people and I get generally the same response: If I wanted to do something different, I would, and my problems are real, they can’t just be jiggled. So it would seem that the grooves are deep and our sense of individuality is somehow attached to our grooves. Oh well, I may take to carrying a bucket of cold water around to share the joy of jiggle.