Aho!!
Itâs striking to me how my walks vary from day to day, even when I choose the same route. Itâs⌠a stunning acknowledgement that my âstate of existenceâ is non-linear. Of course, how many perfectly straight lines are there in Nature? Iâm more⌠beautiful chaos unfolding. 
What came up for me is how I can feel differently from hour to hour. When an emotion or feeling arises that needs to be tapped on, I allow myself to feel my âstate of existenceâ at the time because I find myself trying to push away the uncomfortable feelings. So I am practicing remembering to feel those uncomfortable feelings and meet myself where I am because that is when the healing begins.
Some years ago I came to the realization that, for me at least, life is experienced in âmomentsââŚitâs a moment to moment affair. A moment could be an hour or a few secondsâŚitâs imprecise like life itself is and certainly isnât linear like clock time is. Things change and reshape moment to moment. I wish I could inhabit a more steady stateâŚthat seems it would very likely be an easier existence. Maybe the experience Iâm describing is symptomatic ofâŚsomethingâŚmaybe trauma from the uncertainty of my childhood upbringingâŚI donât know.
One of my fave artists, John Prine sang it this wayâŚ
"Thatâs the way that the world goes 'round
Youâre up one day, the next youâre down
Itâs half an inch of water and you think youâre gonna drown
Thatâs the way that the world goes 'round"
As I listened to the song, googled the full lyrics and thought about what you said @Glenn I realized that I probably experience life like this too. I love to read and I can read a sentence or two that brings up feelings which I usually stop reading and feel into what Iâm feeling. The last couple of days Iâve felt on the verge of tears. No reason why but an ad on TV will trigger them, or a scene in a movie, a thought, a memory. I read something on Facebook yesterday from someone I cared about and felt mildly triggered but soon after I felt a bit nauseous with a pinch in my stomach. For a while I had no idea why, then I realized I was reacting to the triggering. I sense a lot of us highly sensitive souls react to life this way. Iâm all for an easier existence too my friend. 
Yes. One of my dear old dadâs favourite expressions was âGood things donât lastâ. Over the years I came to some mmmm⌠softness about him and his pessimistic view of life. However, that expression continued to intrude and, eventually, I came to realize that it wasnât just âan expressionâ â it was an underlying, foundational concept in my creation of my life experience.
Good things donât last â so donât get excited about anything, donât try TOO hard 'cause, you know, youâre going to be disappointed and what ever you do, donât expect to be satisfied, hell, no! And so it transpiredâŚfor way too many yearsâŚ
I started seriously questioning myself in my late forties; stumbled through my fifties â still questioning, but still not-seeing that ingrained perspective that subtly undermined my efforts to, as you put it, Glenn âinhabit a more steady stateâ; doubts and self-blame and all the rest of itâŚ
A couple of years ago, in my mid-sixties (finally!!) â during a tapping session for some unrelated issue â the clarifying (and, of course, oh so obvious once I saw it) realization stopped me mid-tap, which was: Of COURSE âgood things donât lastâ â because each MOMENT doesnât âlastâ â itâs not supposed to!
Life really IS a series of experienced moments â and by trying to hold on to a particular âgood thingâ â aka a particular moment â I was blocking the NEXT âgood thingâ from evolving⌠I thought â itâs just the same as holding onto trauma; either way, Iâm trying to stop âexperiencingâ because Iâve defined what is a âgood thingâ or a âbad thingâ and locked my perspective onto MY definitions and to hell with the natural flow of Energy, dammit :o) Typical âfear controlâ, innit?
Thanks for this post â Iâm always grateful to be reminded of somethingâŚGood :o) And it was, for me. One day at a time isnât just a phrase for me anymore, and âflow me to my next steps today, Energyâ is my daily invitation to Life. Iâm much less reactive and self-protective these days 
Happy New Year!
Jo
I hadnât realized how âhardâ I landed after an uplifting experience and how that hard landing was making me avoid feeling Really Good.
Day ends, night begins. Rain ends, sun rises. Ecstasy ends (before we die of intense pleasure!)
Learning to savor helped me a lot. Reflecting. Allowing the energy to settle, refresh, recalibrate⌠flow onwards when ready.
Thanks Jo for your words and share!
Rick
Thanks for the deeply considered and deeply moving response JoâŚI truly appreciate it. Itâs amazing how a simple little phrase spoken by someone influential to us can embed itself into our psyche so deeply. Iâve heard the term âthought virusâ before and itâs a pretty good metaphor for how these things work. And who knows exactly what that phrase actually meant to your father? You know for sure how you interpreted itâŚbut do you know if your interpretation matched your fatherâs? Was it completely pessimistic for him? Just curious.
Money was always a tension and an argument between my parents when I was growing up and I clearly remember having the thought/sensation as a kid that âIâm never going to worry about money!.â Well, I realized many years later as an adult that notion can be translated into a number of different behaviours and attitudes. It could mean something like âIâm going to make sure I have enough money so that it is never a worry for meâ. As it turns out my interpretation was more like âIf I have no money then thereâs nothing to argue or worry aboutâ. Itâs a pretty simplistic logic but it is logicalâŚ'if I donât have that thing in my life that causes worry and makes people argue then I wonât have worries or arguments about itâ.
Our Primitive Brains are always activeâŚI donât think itâs a binary thing where weâre either in our Primitive Brain or weâre in our Thriving BrainâŚthey are both active and alert to our inner and outer experiences all the time. And maybe thatâs the thing to be alert to, it seems to me. "Is this interpretation coming from my PB or from my Thriving Brain?"
Hey Glenn â I donât think my father was deliberately âsquelchingâ â that was just his world-view. Another part of it was that âdaughters (and women in general) were created to obeyâ; the âdaddy knows bestâ credo was instilled early and often, along with âdo as I say, not as I doâ (did you ever get that one?! GrrrrrâŚ) He wasnât deliberately cruel, never raised a hand to us or anything like that. But he wasnât supportive, either. Emotionally distantâŚthen physically distant⌠an old and familiar story, eh?
I smiled when I read your âinterpretationâ of ânever going to worry about moneyâ by not having much. Well, if you can agree that money â anything more than a sufficiency of the stuff â is a âgood thingâ, then youâll appreciate that that was also a âlogicalâ outcome of my âtrainingâ. (Of my fatherâs, too --like me, he managed; anything extra never seemed to stick around, proving (of course) the core belief! What a hamster cage our subconscious programming is!! HahahahaaaaâŚ)
So despite greying hair and that surprise face in the morning mirror, Iâm feeling freer, livelier, more curious, less constricted (yes, even in pandemic bound Ontario!) than ever before. And no, I havenât âwon the big oneâ :o) Itâs just that having recast that old belief, I no longer fret about my future. Today is a good day. And thatâs good enough :o)
Cheerio! Jo
This is what I was trying to expressâŚ(if Iâm understanding what you mean)âŚthat he probably wasnât purposefully trying to inflict his belief on youâŚhe was just expressing âhis world-viewâ as you say. And as children we just absorb this stuffâŚand often, maybe even most of the time, it doesnât even need to be expressed in wordsâŚsimply observing how an influential person behaves is enough for us to adopt a belief or a cluster of beliefs that we presume are driving those behaviours. Sometimes our conclusions about those beliefs are accurate and sometimes we are way off. That I know from experience⌠But itâs powerful stuffâŚso much so that even being aware of it doesnât necessarily alter our attitudes and behaviours that those beliefs are drivingâŚas you are clearly well aware of I know. This being human thing is a real trip, no?
Where are you in Ont.? I was born in North Bay and lived in T.O for many years before moving out to B.C.
Iâm currently in a tiny rural town in north Durham region â far from any madding crowds, thankfully :o)
North Bay, eh? You must be feeling right at home with the current weather in BC! HahahaaaâŚ
Iâve been out west for a bit more than 30 years so I donât have much âmuscle memoryâ left for surviving this coldâŚlol. Itâs been good thoughâŚIâve had a couple nice walks around a nearby golf course and walking in the snow and cold has activated some nice memories of growing up in that climate. It age regresses me. And I donât really even own any proper winter clothes anymore⌠
My two daughters are in T.O. One in Scarborough, one around Yonge & Eglington. I lived in T.O for about 12 yearsâŚI donât think I could happily live there again. It was a kinder, gentler city when I lived there.
Yes, I agree; a lot of changes in the area in those thirty years, not all for the goodâŚ
However â Glenn, I want to apologise for my appallingly insensitive remark about the weather â I was out of lineâŚ
In the past, weather jokes have been fair game. But not now, and especially given the horrific extremes folks in the West have experienced this year, and are continuing to experience. If it was just a matter of unusual snowfall, well, okay --but itâs not and I know that and Iâm very sorry for my knee-jerk flippancy.
Donât get frost-bite while regressing, okay!! Jo
I donât feel thereâs a need for you to apologize about your weather commentâŚit was light hearted, playful and humourousâŚI see no offense in it. I mean, sheesh, if we add weather to the continuously lengthening list of things weâre not suppose to talk about weâll have nothing to talk about!!
Thanks, Glenn :o) From light-heart to yours!
Jo