Kickstarting and Wondering

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Let me start this early morning Monday with a sip of coffee. May I ask you how do you start your day? And how do you start your week? I need coffee. That's like... yeah, I need coffee to function. Well, of course, I can function without coffee too, but with coffee I am more pleasant for the people around me. You know with all that "be patient with people" and so on. So, here I am, at the office, sipping on a thumbler of freshly brewed Guatemala Antigua coffee from Starbucks. And I like to mention that it is fabulous, though still, my favorite is Pike Place. Boy, that blend is wonderful.

Yesterday I had a bit of unpsetting news regarding the some accounting I'm doing, but nothing that can't be fixed, but still, that kept with me for a while. I know, I'm a bit of a... well, I'm not a perfectionist, but more like I really dislike it when things don't run smoothly. Things don't need to be perfect, just keep up with the plan. But then, I took a sip of coffee and everything became ever so rosy. Is it ok, that my whole outlook of the day can be so dramatically changed by a beverage? Explaining it one way or another might end up sounding like trying to explain away the issue, but still, here is what I've learned from my  morning coffee:

Often times some things happen that put us in a cycle of worry, anguish, sadness or anger or any sort of negative feeling. We then try to fix them or get rid of them through a series of mechanism usual for us to deal with them. However, in many occasions our usual negative-ridding-tools don't work or don't work as well as we would like them to do. In this cases it might help to take a step back, recede to a point of calm and happiness that could take us to a "resetting" stage, recharge us, clean our head, so that we can face the issue again, without a looking cloud of darkeness conjured up by our own. This is what coffee makes for me.

As a kinetic person, I find it easier to "fall" into my tactile, smell and taste senses for resetting. I've always been particularly sensitive to textures, sensations, touch and smell, and a cup of coffee - along with the taste - always transport me to a good place. Through feeling the ceramic of the cup, or the metal of the thumbler, and the heat sipping through it, the wet heat rising up from the lid in soft curls of vapour hitting my upper lip and carrying the scent of fresh coffee can erase everything from my mind. It's like the magic of archery, when you take stance, place the arrow in the rest, push the nook into the nook point and that snap as it clicks in place reverberates in your chest. Then you move. Arms and bow raise as the arrow is drawn, the side of the index finger finds the anchor point under the bone of your jaw, your breathing slows, you aim, and as you aim all goes away. Nothing clouds your mind, and your whole universe reduces to the aim. Then... you release. That's me falling into the arrow and the bow, and so I fall into the coffee. In this moment I disconnect from the world, get lost in this one, beautiful, full thing, and then, when I emerge, my mind is clean.

Of course, in order to be able to fall, you need to let yourself fall, concentrate in the thing you like and release yourself, so that you can absorb this, experience it, and relish in it. Not in a conscious, reasoned effort to grasp the thing, but more... as if you were coffee in a pool of milk: flow into it, go wherever it takes you. Take the fall as a moment to leave worry behind, you are not required to write a report of your experience, so simply enjoy the moment, fall.

Now, it's important to notice that falling to clean your head isn't the Holy Grial and answer for all ails and problems. There are problems and conditions that are far bigger than what can be solved with a clean head. If you fall and come back and the issues still loom big over you, consider seeking help. Falling isn't an alternative to pills and medication, if you have a condition, and it's not a solution for larger problems that affect you socially, economically, politically, and on other areas. But take that moment of clear headedness to asses the scope of your issues and seek the help you need to solve them. Seeking help doesn't make you weak, less or a coward. Seeking help makes you smart.

Go and be smart.