Digging Up Dead Thyme

Mark mentioned a conversation he had with our next door neighbor Jim while Mark was in the front yard “digging up dead thyme.” We both laughed at the irony of this phrase and agreed it should go in at least one of our journals; he told me that it was a gift to me and I should record it in mine. Why is the phrase so amusing? I suppose because I do spend a good deal of my time (hah!) thinking thinking thinking about past events, losses, things that could have gone better, mistakes and mysteries.

On the other hand, sometimes yard work has to be done to clear out dying vegetation and then it is quite necessary to “dig up dead thyme;” to finally understand what happened long ago and how it is influencing the present dream.

I just finished a book called “Loving What Is,” by Byron Katie, another book about accepting and living in the present. In this book, Katie (as she calls herself) talks about emerging from a deep depression with a sudden understanding of how to do “The Work” to look at the problems of life in a new way. She sums up the work as follows: “Make a judgment, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around.”

I make it sound a little simplistic or a little crazy, but what it does is make you look at a problem that is causing you great unhappiness and see it in a new light. This follows the same path as other approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy and the Power of Now—the idea is to be mindful of the thinking that is causing suffering and to dispute or counter that thinking. When it works (and I have found that it can work), it can alleviate some of the suffering. It is a focus on the pure reality of now.

Telling someone else about it, however, in the hopes that you might help them alleviate their own suffering, is alas a very different matter and quite difficult to do. A person is not ready for this until they’re ready, and until they’re ready, it sounds off the wall, boring or both. (Hello? Still there?)

What are your experiences with techniques for changing your moods for the better? Feel free to post here. For my other blogs on this topic, see Sanity.