What happens when the extraordinary becomes “normal?” The short answer is, “Something breaks.”
Of course, I never stick with the short answer, so here’s my expansion. By extraordinary I don’t mean just those things like revolutions and UFOs and childbirth. They’re extraordinary but relatively short-lived.
Just as a car can go past its optimum operating ability for a short time, it’s still in the red line of the tachometer. That red line tells us we’re in a danger zone and that to keep on keepin’ on in that zone is dangerous to the health of the car.
It’s important to recognize that extraordinary is intended to be short term. Most of the time most of us handle individual extraordinariness quite well. The most dangerous extraordinary isn’t one single thing.
If we have enough ordinary things going on in our lives until the sum of them causes us to act in extraordinary ways, like go without sleep, skip meals, take care of others without taking care of ourselves, then ordinary has become extraordinary.
The problem with this kind of extraordinary is that it creeps up on us, one thing after another after another. Pretty soon running in the red line begins to feel like that’s just the way life is. Normal.
But it shouldn’t be. Just as with a car running at redline for too long, something is going to break.
When we ignore the signals or, worse, don’t even notice them, and redline becomes normal, something in us will break. It might be our bodies, it might be our minds, it might be our spirits. Maybe all of them.
Something will break.
Running in the red line is ignoring our souls and their needs. It’s our souls that give us life. When we don’t tend to our souls as well as we tend to other people, our souls will give us notice that life is out of control, life is not really life. We get headaches. We lose or gain weight. Blood pressure goes up. We get depressed. We smoke or drink too much.
In extreme cases we crash and burn. We might or might not recover.
There are as many ways to refresh our souls as there are souls. For some, it will be keeping a journal and communicating with the soul that way. For others it might be creating art, or cooking, or daydreaming. Whatever takes us away from the extraordinary normal.
Whatever is fun.
Fun is healing. We shouldn’t feel guilty for needing and having fun, no matter what’s going on in our lives. We all know how good a belly laugh makes us feel. We’re lighter, somehow, more vibrant. Humor is healing.
Humor feeds the soul. Humor lightens us up and we more closely match the vibrational energy of our souls. Humor is the way to feed our souls and to renew our connection with them, to become enlivened again. Without humor we feel separated from our souls and then we feel the heaviness of the cares of this earthly plane.
So, if you want to do more for others, figure out how to do more for yourself. You can’t continue to give from an empty tank. Fill yours up so you can give and do more.
But don’t just give it lip service. Really, have fun. Love yourself. Take care of yourself. When you do that, you can’t help but love and take care of others.
Luvya.
p.s. I’m so happy to be able to read my monitor again. I’m so glad to be back.
Beautiful post Sam, one we can all heed for one reason or another, and one I plan to forward to a couple of friends. Hopefully the words will sound different coming from fingers other than mine … Glad your tech problem is fixed and you are back in the land of the digitally sighted.
Glad you liked it, Sharon. It was something I needed to remind my self of even though I’ve been there and done that before. You’d think I’d learn. Well, I sorta did, I guess, because now I recognize what’s going on in one way or another. Didn’t/couldn’t do that before the crash and burn, so I guess there’s progress. “Digitally sighted.” What a great phrase! LOL
So true Sam and so eloquently put! I’m going to stick a post it saying “beware the red zone!” on my fridge and smile and think of you!
Hey, Jude, I’m glad it resonated with you. Beware of that red line, fershure. LOL Sam
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Oh, Sam – this speaks to me so much. I ride in the red zone all the time, which isn’t good for me – however, I do find humor in life and constantly remind myself to laugh it off. You’d not be surprised, but others think it’s weird when I say to laugh off your burdens and they become lighter.
Hey, Rhonda! That red zone is a scary place and all the more so when it becomes the place where we live. Humor does help to relieve the tension but sooner or later even humor can’t handle all the load. Of course, if our work is more than just a job, working really hard isn’t all that hard after all. But keep an eye on that red line… Sam
Hi Sam, loved this post. What I’m hearing today is your emphasis on making soul work Fun!!! I get way too uptight about it all and start to think and worry and fluster too much. It is amazing how much weight falls off my shoulders when I remember to laugh, and I mean great big belly laughs, not wry smiles at the sheer ridiculousness of it all (‘it’ being life).
Hi Edith, glad it resonated with you. I think we get way too serious about being soulfull and forget that the soul is not a heavy thing. Being relaxed and open to its guidance is way easier on us than trying too hard to use only our human capabilities to fill up our soul tank. I truly believe that a real, hearty laugh is a way to shake off the heaviness and get closer. Shoot, there are even laugh clubs that believe this. LOL Sam