It is five o’clock in the morning; gray light dims the windows as my mind brings up fears. My preference is to wake when the windows are bright and the petrea vine climbs along the top of the compound wall—its tiny purple flowers a reminder of New England lilacs.
Now, feeling my body heavy as lead, and unwilling to roll halfway to settle back into pillow-comfort, I even ignore my wake-up song, “Good morning, good morning, the best to you each morning”—an old Kellogg’s cereal lyric that I’ve adapted to “Meher Baba.” Realizing I am also very cold, I have an inspiration that I need to get warm. I feel too lazy to get the blue hot water bottle and wait for the pot to heat; but there’s my heating pad. Back under the covers with the button lit on number one, I slowly relax into the heat spreading from my chest out through my arms and legs and as I do, my thoughts widen to include more balanced ones.
I remember Winston Churchill’s historic WW II saying, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I remember from spiritual training that fear is “false evidence appearing as real.” Yet sometimes I need more than thoughts.
Cocoa, flower petals in the tub, and teddy bears were high on my recommendation list for clients in my counseling practice to find some of their comfort in these sensory friends.
My realization is, “Fear ranges from the physical to the emotional, from the small to the large through most of us; when we find our ability to think our direction away from the dread, we may also reach for the simple self-comforts of warmth, touch, aroma, sound, and taste.”