Isn't It Strange....

...that our deepest fears visit us at night?  What is that all about?  Why does darkness engender demons in our minds?  I've been up since three this morning, wild thoughts swirling without ease, although I'm a little better with the sunrise (it was a beautiful sunrise, lots of pinks and yellows, lovely wispy clouds) but have lingering angst.  And the hell of it all is that life is good!  I'm happy and healthy, friends are in good places (mostly), family is in good places (mostly), Chicago has a new mayor that seems like a wonderful pick, Wisconsin just got a liberal Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years, the orange fuckwad was indicted and arraigned on 34 fabulous counts of crap, my partner is amazing, it's spring and the weather is gorgeous....so what kept me up most of the night, you ask?  One of those awful rabbit holes of self-doubt.  Yep, my brain telling me, "Kristie, you've made all the wrong choices!  You're a failure!  You should never have become an actor!  You should have gone to law school!  You're never going to work again!  You're going to end up penniless!  You're so immature!  Grow up!  Oh, too late - you are grown up!  AND YOU'VE MADE ALL THE WRONG CHOICES!"  And on and on and on and on.   Jeez!!!  SHUT UP!!!  To quell the rant in my head, I read for a while, hoping to break up the screaming mob.  Nope, didn't work.  Tried breathing exercises.  The only good thing about that was, yep, I'm breathing!  I finally just got up and watched the sun rise, listened to the birds wake up, had a long, quiet morning of stillness while my partner snoozed in bed.

What do you do when you're in the grip of self-doubt?  Do those fears just come and go throughout our lives because we're human?  Why are we so hard on ourselves?  What are we measuring our success against?  Why do we beat ourselves up so much and forget the good things and focus on the bad?  Why don't we see what we have instead of what we have not?  Yeah, I don't have answers to these questions, either.  All I know is that today is a beautiful day, the birds are singing, the sun is shining, and I'm breathing.  I think I'll focus on the simple stuff today....breathing, sun, beauty....love, gratitude....

I hope you had a fabulous night's sleep and dreamt of marvelous things.