I’m held hostage still by my unrelenting ruminating thoughts. I’ve been there many times in the past. I’ve had not much success in finding a cure so I will stay the course and let them go round and round till they peter out. Maybe something will trigger the jukebox in my head and I can hear a different tune.

The thing not to do is to berate myself for ruminating. If I could stop, surely I would. It is distressing and no fun at all. And if I could stop, why wouldn’t I? I am chilled with the stress. I put on my soft cotton sweater. It is a strange pale lime colour, not at all compatible with my Asian complexion. But it is amazingly comforting. I’m practicing what the Danish call haygge. I’m experiencing some ease in ‘talking‘ about my distress here. I seldom find it in verbal exchange with someone in real time. Often, there’s misunderstanding, mishearing or no hearing at all. That can cause playback over and over, like an echo chamber.

Here, I can tap out my thoughts, distress. There’s no talk back, no judgement and no why did/didn’t you do that? Thinking back/still, I know I did the best I could at the time. If I could have done better, I would have. Working out these thoughts on the page is more effective than trying to convince/gain another’s approval of my actions. Doing so only causes me to doubt myself resulting in more distress. Was it Rudyard Kipling that advises on keeping one’s own counsel in his poem IF?

The poem IF by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!