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The Blindfolded Bad-Snack Game

I was blindfolded. I could hear my brother’s grandchildren’s muffled whispers. I was told there were 3 bowls of snacks in front of me. I fumbled my hands away from me in my forced darkness, towards where I thought the bowls of snacks would be. My fingers found the 3 bowls. I pulled out something from the left bowl, raised it to my mouth, opened up and crunched. Crispy, cheesy. I liked it. I moved my right hand out in front of me to the middle bowl as I swallowed the last bit of the first snack. I brought the piece from that bowl to my mouth and bit. Crunch, salty… to me, as good tasting as the snack from the first bowl. I went for bowl 3. Muffled high-pitched giggles entered my ears. I brought the snack to my mouth, hesitated, and bit. Yuck! It was soggy. It tasted like something I’d never want to eat. I chewed. And chewed. More muffled giggles. I kept chewing. The giggles stopped.



I swallowed and moved my hand back out to bowl number 3, brought it closer, and went to town on its contents. As soggy and as gross tasting as it was, I couldn’t stop going for more. Chewing each mouthful as if I were savouring the best culinary delight of my life. As soon as each mouthful had been sucked of all its awful flavour, my hands went for more. And more. The bowl had no bottom. I could eat, bite, chew, swallow as much as this vile offering as a man could eat. More and more. I was Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Not chopping brooms, but stuffing grim, unfathomable snacks into my cavernous, insatiable mouth. I was retching as I ate. Faster and faster. Grosser and grosser. And YUCK!


I woke up. Mouth open. Tight jawed and nose scrunched. It was dark. I turned my head to my right and squinted at the digital clock on the table beside my bed. 1.47 am. I reached for the bottle of water by my bed and took a few big swigs. And laughed.

As my head went back onto the pillow and I closed my eyes to go back to sleep, my eyes were thrown wide open again by the dream. What the heck was I doing going back for more and more?


“I do that!” I said out loud.


I do that with so many things in my mind. Memories of events with feelings I didn’t want to replay, that I did anyway. Worries of the future that brought me to a cold sweat. I went into those with that same gusto. Feelings too. Devour them. Dig in. Eat them like there’s no tomorrow.


“What the heck is that about?” I said. I giggled. And went back to sleep.  


Now, dreams being dreams, when I got up that morning, I couldn’t remember a thing. That afternoon though, in a gap between client calls, it started to pop back. The blindfold… The snack game... The going back to the bad snack over and over again… My crazy! What also came back was the thought I had at 1.47 am: “I do that!”


Not with snacks, nor with other foods, drinks, smells, touch, sounds, but with feelings. I have a bad one and go to town on it. From countless conversations with other people, I know I’m not the only one.


It’s puzzling to me. On the one hand, it makes no sense. Yet, I know, on another level, it must make some sense, otherwise, I wouldn’t do it. Let me give an example. I’m watching a tv show one evening. Some random, worry-some thought comes into my mind, and a worry-some feeling twists at my guts. I’m unsettled. I shift focus back to the TV screen and my feeling of enjoyment is back. Then I have this thought: “Wait, what was that feeling just now…? I need to worry about something… what was it?” Whether I remember the thought or not, I’m back into the feeling of worry.


I could substitute ‘worry’ with other feelings, like resentment, anger, fear, stress… the pattern is the same. There seems to be something in these feelings that needs to be figured out, to be done, to be analysed. To be fixed. To think about and to get to the bottom of. Maybe my hope is that if I do get to the bottom of it, the feeling will go. Be banished. Forever. Some hope that is!


While maybe there is something that needs to be done: reply to an email, update my work schedule, or raise an invoice; but what I forget is that delving then digging into the ‘bad feeling’ doesn’t bring that thing to mind. In fact, it often chases that thought of the thing to be done further away from my conscious mind. That could be where I get fooled. Fooled into believing that delving into the ‘bad feeling’ brings the ‘what I need to do’ to mind. Or, maybe it’s being fooled into thinking that the worse I feel, the more likely I am to get into action. Yeah, right! Nope – feeling ‘bad’ keeps me in inertia. For longer. And feeling the feelings I don’t like for longer.


Eating from bowl number 3, in the hope that when I finish it, I’ll never have to eat bad-tasting things ever again. When bowls 1 and 2 are right in front of me all the time. Bringing tastes I do like, with the probability that in the feeling of enjoying them: the best, creative ideas come to mind. I know that’s true, and I know, as a human, I might forget that time and time again. Or maybe I’ll get wise to the fact, and be on a learning curve to leave bowl 3 alone after the first bite. Knowing that in truth, one bite is all I need to stop.


With love and thanks,

Wyn

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