Are you living in a fantasy ... and don't even know it?

You would think that if you were living in a fantasy, a world fuelled by denial ... you'd know it, wouldn't you?. Or so I thought.

My childhood was blessed by a life in hot exotic places and as such I have a memory database filled with sunny pictures if you look under the category climate=sunny. As such you can imagine that living in England, with its apparently less desirable weather would be somewhat of a struggle for me. In fact it is. Its not the cold, its not the rain, its not even the mud or sludge that the combination produces ... it is the light, or rather the lack of it. Those dark, dreary days that often span from November well into March and sometimes even April seem to bring the doom and gloom to my mind.

Medically I apparently am said to have Seasonal Affective Disorder which apparently is common in people who grew up in hot sunny places and then move to cold, dark places. My blood-work even has shown a distinct lack of Vitamin D and as such I have been prescribed a lovely supplement (which definitely helps) and have acquired a daylight lamp that mimics sunlight for those darker months of the year. Certainly it also helps to eat certain foods and exercise, but I have always wondered if perhaps there also was something in my mind, within my thoughts that could possibly intensify the reaction I have to dark light.

I wouldn't exactly call my feelings or reactions to the lack of sunlight a depression as such, but then again when I do compare it to my mood and behaviour when I am in a sunny climate, the word "depress" becomes more and more applicable. This comparison is indeed the most stark reminder that something within my mind is also involved. Of course you could now argue the "chicken and egg" scenario, which is indeed a relevant question - what causes what?. Modern medicine would argue here that due to the lack of sunlight and the consequences this has on your biochemistry - low mood results. Could it however be something deeper, further underneath the surface, that could also play a role within this chemical arrangement?

On the surface of my mind I am not readily aware of any denial or fantasy as such, but then again I have not probed deeper. My immediate reaction to the lack of sunlight is pretty standard: I like to stay in bed, feel lethargic, lack ambition and generally the day feels like a drag. In contrast to this would be when the sun does shine: I need less sleep, feel energized and look forward to the tasks of the day. Of course in that very moment when I open the curtains and realise its another damp, dark and dreary day - my mind does not go into long languid analysis of why and how I feel this way, its more of a prolonged sigh ( or sometimes depending on how many days in a row it has been like this, perhaps a swearword .. or two,lol).

Still, the moment I do open those curtains, despite of which reaction I chose to garnish the moment with - one things that is obvious is that my body/mind has made a categorical decision that what is, is BAD. For something to be "bad", something else has to be "good" as they are both tools of comparison. So what is really going on in my mind is Sunny = good and low light =bad. The amazing things is that as soon as I lay bare this comparison, my mind already knows and accepts that this is a crass over-simplification and not exactly the whole truth. Very warm/hot weather also makes me lethargic and when its cold and dark outside I also like the cosiness of hot chocolate and warm fires. So things are not as straight forward as they would have seemed at first.

In actuality all situations have equal simultaneous benefits and drawbacks but depending on your experiences and the interpretations of theses your mind will exist in a state of polarisation where one will seem "better" than the other. This is exactly what my mind is experiencing right here. Sunny seems better than dark - but that is merely my interpretation of the situation. What is fascinating also is that for everything I label "bad", right behind it apparently out of sight is also what I call "good" and this is the place where my fantasy is hiding.

I don't know about your mind, but my mind thinks alot in pictures. So when I open the curtains and realise its dark, it is as if my mind is playing two different movie reels side by side. One is all about dark, dreary winter and the other is all about lovely, happy summer. The one I am focusing on is the winter movie because it seems real to me, but actually the comparison movie of summer is right there as without it the winter one would just be factual (rain, snow, cloud) rather then the emotive filter that I have applied to it. My view of life is all about my interpretation of the events that occur within it - I apply the labels of "good" and "bad" and everybody's interpretation is different.

So do I have a fantasy and don't even know it ... I sure do. My fantasy is that "if" I opened the curtains and it was sunny, life would be "better". This is were I have my trusty tool of the Demartini Method (the very short version) that you can apply to any of these situations where your mind believes one thing to be better than something else - I like to think it is a recalibration of my mind in line with actuality. I take a plain piece of paper, draw a line down the centre and on one side label the column "benefits" and the other "drawbacks" - and I repeat this treatment a second time. On the first page I use the heading Winter-dreary-low light and on the second Summer-upbeat-sunny. What I am basically doing is coming up with as many benefits and drawbacks to both scenarios because I know that both situations have equal - and + simultaneously.

What literally happens as I go through this process is that "Sunny" doesn't look so good anymore and "Low light" doesn't look so bad anymore. The way to really nail this exercise is to link these to what is most important to you (ie: your Values). Your mind only calls something "bad" if it believes it to bring more drawbacks than benefits. As soon as you do the calibration exercise where you balance the - and +, the event no longer is only "good" or "bad" .. it just is both equally.

What is significant about this however is that the next time I open the curtains, having done and completed this exercise, I still see the clouds and the low light but it no longer carries the emotional weight it did before. Where before my thoughts literally came up with a list of WHY dark weather was BAD as soon as I opened the curtains, now when I do so (post balancing exercise) my mind literally comes up with both benefits and drawbacks of this weather and then gets on with the things that inspire me the most.

So go find your fantasies, lure them out of their hiding spots and question your mind if your interpretation is actually in balance. Why? I don't know about you but my fantasies cost me alot of emotions, keep me from what really inspires me and they are the cause of alot of procrastinating behaviours that I then invariably beat myself up about. quite frankly there are alot of things I would much rather be doing ... and I am sure so would you:)

"The quality of your life depends on the quality of questions you ask" - Dr John Demartini