Poetry and slowing down

Hello friends!
I'm coming to terms with some of the ideas I was exploring in my last post.
Here are some solutions I've found for me.

The best thing so far has been to 

take my foot off the accelerator!

For an adrenalin junkie like me this has consequences in my mood, and is not quite as easy as it seems. But it certainly quietens my nervous system and leaves me much more able to cope. I do love creation and discovery, so staying in one place for too long can depress my mood. This is a continual balancing act.

I am finding I can use my sensitive senses and my Autistic brain to dive deep into the moment. 

Exploring deeply into my senses

 helps time slow down and gives my brain something to feed on so it doesn't feel bored or run around trying to find something else to obsess over.

Also feeding my senses calms my body and gives me another layer of relaxation.

I am working out that when the volume suddenly feels turned up, or the speedometer is in the red, it often isn't the world that has changed, even if that is how my mind interprets it, 

so I run around trying to slot appointments into calendars and telling everyone to quieten down. When really I need to 

remove myself

 from being around people for a while until my mind quietens down and I can cope again.

I find it hard to understand this in the moment, as my mind interprets everything as external. It really is hard to realise the change has been within. I rely on others to help me with this.

I also have found poetry to be a huge help. Not just writing it, but 

using the poetic mindset

 which loves contradictions and paradox to help me live in amongst the chaos. To encourage me to not try and rule boxes around moments but to let life flow more freely through my hands and sit in the messy maelstrom.

Here are two poems I wrote along these lines.

I hope you enjoy them and maybe find encouragement for your life.

I love walking on edges

those crumbling places

that hold so much room

for new thoughts

I want to explore them

with my side eyes open

to sense wondrous

impossibilities of life

To believe in things

that shouldn't happen

and have mysteries

that confound the wise

I want to stay awake

to contradictions

to feel expansion

around the sides

To keep myself

from being rigid

and funnelling my thoughts

down the line

Help me to be

receptive to them

those spaces which

are hard to define

And help me to

receive within me

the lifelines that are

my poetic mind

17/5/18

When I am tired

and overwhelmed

I tie myself up tight

in boxes

cutting off any soul

hanging over the edge

I want to make life organised

cut and dried, certain

simple and easy to manage

but all that I lose when I restrict

and confine

is my expansive playful

mysterious self

17/5/18

OK we'll leave it there for now. I'm sure this isn't the last I will speak on this topic!

Til next time,

keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack