Shake Off Those Demons

Have you ever thought to yourself, 'is there something or someone out there trying to get me?' Like a demon, it's an unexplained force that persistently torments you. Have you noticed how you are more easily alerted to, or remember the things that go wrong for you, or something you don't like rather than all the good things that happen to you? Apparently this is a perfectly natural phenomenon. It's due to the ancient reptilian and early mammalian structure of our brain that kicks in when exposed to negative events. Our brain does this instinctively to protect us. This skill was useful in the days when we roamed around with other wild animals and to this day, in moderation, can be useful to make us cautious and be prepared when appropriate. The difficulty lies when we let our negative thoughts spiral out of control.

To add to this challenge, our brains pick up on negatives almost instantly, whereas it takes around 30 seconds to register something positive which means more effort. If we don't train our brains to focus on the positives, our minds can run away to form conclusions based on our fears.

I confess to letting my mind run away with itself and even coming to the illogical conclusion (that seems most logical at the time), that there is something tormenting me.

Take the simple example of when I had travelled back to the UK from Asia to celebrate my Mum's 70th birthday. I was so glad to have made the effort of travelling door to door for 30 hours with my 6 year old daughter to celebrate with my Mum, Dad, family and friends. It was well worth the jet lag and having my daughter wake me up at 3am saying she was wide awake and hungry, the body shock when experiencing a sudden temperature drop from 30 degrees centigrade to below minus, the general disruption of my routine and making time, in spite of my already 'hectic' schedule, especially with the run up to Christmas.

When my daughter and I flew back to Singapore, the heat and humidity hit me like an unavoidable, industrial sized hairdryer. It didn't help that when I returned to my office and living quarters in China Town, the power went out.  As I sat in the dark, thinking how in the ten years I had lived and worked in Singapore, I had never experienced a power cut and why did it have to happen now when I least needed it?  What was going on? I absolutely needed air conditioning or a fan to cool me down. Power cuts only happened to me in Bali and they usually lasted five to six hours. What if this power cut lasted as long?  How on earth could I attempt to sleep when it was still the day time in the UK so I didn't really want to sleep and I would gradually get hotter and hotter until I overheated? My mind jumped to the conclusion that I was being tormented. The power cut only lasted for about two minutes and yet in this short space of time I had experienced a huge trail of random, nonsensical thoughts that were leading me down a negative path.

Following this little episode I continued to gather more 'evidence' of things going wrong. The most notable was when I over-enthusiastically stuffed our newly acquired second-hand washing machine with dirty clothes.  My husband was out at a meeting, our staff were on Christmas leave and my three daughters were quietly occupying themselves in the front of the office, so that was my chance to run through the place like a tornado, whisking up all the dust, dirt and clothes that had accumulated in my absence while in the UK. I felt the need to make everything clean to the extent of sanitisation and didn't read the instructions or see the picture on the washing powder packet that clearly demonstrated only half or at most one scoopful of washing powder was required.  By now, I had become accustomed to the noticeable weaker washing powder in Bali (my friend who runs a market research consultancy says that the washing powder in Indonesia is not as strong as the washing powder in Singapore). My over-zealousness led me to fill up the washing machine's tray to the brim.


All was going well until the washing machine attempted its first spin.  It suddenly turned into a bucking bronco, heavily leaping and banging against the kitchen floor and oozing out streams of white, bubbly liquid.  My biggest concern was that a surly looking Chinese man on the floor below (who happens to run a massage shop) had complained when water started seeping through to his floor during a tropical rainstorm and we hadn't closed our shutters. How would he react to all this noise and a sea of white bubbles leaking through the floor boards onto his customers, who were there for a nice, relaxing, soothing massage? My reptilian / mammalian brain kicked into action and I instantly threw my body and arms over the washing machine, embracing it in a big hug, but it continued to bang like a pneumatic drill that was about to break through the ceiling.  Frantically searching for something dry to mop up the floor, I flung the remaining masses of dirty laundry waiting to be washed over the frothing spillage which made it even dirtier as it picked up rust from the washing machine and years of grease from the grubby tiled floor.  I sent an anxious text to my husband, "how long do you think you'll be?  Washing machine jumping around and water leaking - worried about flooding and Chinese man below....."

In complete panic and exhaustion, I did the only thing I could think of and switched off the machine at the socket.  Finally there was peace, but the water and masses of bubbles were still seeping out of the bottom of the machine, so I had to mop up the excess water every couple of minutes. Two hours later, my husband happily walked through the door, blissfully unaware of what state I was in.  He hadn't read my text. Hot, dishevelled and worried, I emotionally relayed the story to him and he calmly replied "Oh yes I forgot to tell you about the washing machine - you can only put small loads in." I was worried whether I would ever get my washing back from a machine that was forced to stop mid-cycle.  My husband reassuringly demonstrated the solution to me.  He switched on the washing machine and sat on it! We then took it in turns to sit on the washing machine every time it was due for a spin on the extra-long heavily soiled cycle that I had selected, until I was finally able to retrieve my washing that literally stood up on its own because it was so thickly caked in washing powder!

Although harassed by this situation, it could have been far worse.  It was so lucky that the washing machine and I didn't end up on the floor below! At times like this, it's good to add some humour and be resourceful. Whilst forced to sit on the washing machine, I was able to check and respond to my emails on my laptop. Later on in the week, it amused my thirteen year old daughter when the machine made its familiar banging noise and I ran from one end of the office to the kitchen telling my alarmed team, "Oh that's the washing machine, I'm going to sit on it." We can learn from these negative experiences when we bring our thoughts into control.

So shake off those demons and don't let them torment you.  The good news is that now you know a little bit more about how our brain works, you can recognise when to control your runaway thoughts. Add humour, consider all the positives that are happening in your life, be grateful for what you have (even if it is a second-hand, leaking washing machine - far better than doing everything by hand) and remember it takes longer to register positives, so make some more concentrated effort to consider what's going well.

In line with the demon theme, I like this quote:-

"It's a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."
Buddha

Enjoy shaking off those demons.

Janet