The huntsman in my head

I’m currently sitting in Melbourne airport after checking in and now I am waiting for my flight (a whole four hours ahead of time…….I’m always super early at airports).  I spent most of my week in the Yarra Valley on a Meditation Teachers’ retreat.  Learning more about how to teach you lovelies how to meditate.

It’s been a pretty big step for me.  I’m not well travelled and I sometimes get homesick so being away from home in a foreign country (can I call Australia that?) was a new experience.

Anyway, if you haven’t been to the Yarra Valley, it’s about an hour and a half out of Melbourne city.  Sort of bush land, with a small town.  The Centre I was staying at was situated in 40 acres of beautiful Australian bush.  And I was scared.

You see, in New Zealand, we don’t have very large or poisonous spiders or any snakes at all and I knew before arriving there was a high probability I would come across one.

There was good news though.  Upon being shown to my room, I noted there were insect screens on the door and window and after a relatively thorough search of the room including chairs being upended and the bed being pulled out from the wall, I was satisfied that no spiders had taken up residence in my room.

Fast forward to the first night of my stay and after more careful deliberate checking of towels, blankets and toilet seats, I was feeling relatively comfortable.

That was right until I walked back into the room after my shower and saw a giant spider on the wall above my bed.  I went into flight, fright, freeze mode and I froze.  I couldn’t move.  The spider seemed to sense my fear and quickly scurried down beneath the bed.

OMG!!  I panicked and legged it out of the room.  Everyone else was asleep so I had to wake up the retreat leader and through my out-of-breath, chattering teeth explain that there was a spider and I needed help.  She put a gentle hand on my shoulder and said that it was probably a Huntsman and not to worry as they are not harmful.

I desperately tried to plead that the harmful / harmless factor wasn’t the issue, it was the mere fact it was in my room.  She suggested meditating and that it would be an excellent lesson for my mind.

I was just about going insane.  I couldn’t go back in there now.  The room was tainted.  I would have to sleep out here.  Stay awake all night and hope that spiders don’t travel in packs.

But then, I realised this whole story was a fabrication of my mind.  There was no spider.  I’d just allowed my mind to take me on a catastrophising story of no truth whatsoever.  I’d imagined this whole narrative and it had played up to one of my main fears and weaknesses.

You see, that’s what the mind does.  I thought it was just me.  But in fact, everyone’s mind makes up stories that suit their own highly developed narrative.  Your mind has been doing it for years and you might not have even noticed.

The good news is that you can train yourself to recognise when good ol’ Deidre (my mind’s name) has jumped in and taken over.  You can see that the story of “I’m not good enough”, “I’m hopeless”, “I never get anything right” is playing again and thank it for its input but choose to ignore it.

I know!  Liberating huh?  Clucking bell!  (I’ll leave you to figure the rhyme there).

So, next time your mind is telling you a story that you just don’t need, thank it for its input and move on.

And, as a rule, always roll up the spare towel in your room to cover the gap under the door in your room.  Just in case.