Mend the Wound

Imagine, an archer or gunman shoots your leg. Do you fix the leg by confronting the shooter? Or, do you tend to the injured area and mend the wound?

You can go after the shooter and make him aware of your injury. Only, he may not care one way or the other that he hurt you. After all, he wasn't the one injured.

The wisest move to make is perhaps to mend the wound, otherwise you'll bleed out waiting for him to acknowledge, address, share in, apologize, take responsibility for causing you pain. Often times (at least for myself). We choose the former. We try to mend by protecting ourselves by pursuing the shooter either outwardly or mentally. We replay the situation over and over and create alternate endings to imagine new outcomes. How could we have handled things better if we were in that moment again?

This imagined scene causes us to live in the past though our intent is to mentally, spiritually, and physically prepare ourselves for the future. Strangely enough, underneath our eagerness and anticipation is a strand of hope. Yes, hope. We hope that one day the moment will come again and that this time we will be armed to defend and attack.

Of course we know deep down that there's no rewind button to life. The scene cannot be relived in the real world. So we create one! Our mind is powerful and does not know the difference between reality and the dreamworlds. Our mind recreates what occurred through the power of imagination. Inevitably, we fall deep in thought, a virtual reality, a dream world, a day dream. Play after play we find ourselves stuck in a time loop, ground hog day if you will.

At times we are characterized as the victim blindsided by a villainous foe. Other times, we fight back defeating our arch enemy to walk away unscathed as the victor. Then, on the rare occasion, we may strike first to prevent a tragic end thus becoming the shooter.

While our mind struggles to find a proper resolution, our body reacts to the images projected by our imagination. We'll become tense, angry, sad, depressed for extended periods, happy, excited, hyped! Our muscles activate, nerves on edge, adrenaline rushes, stress levels intensify. The more we click play, the more time we spend conditioning the body to react to scenes played in our head. Translation: we train the body to remain in a prolonged state of stress. Because the body operates on biochemicals (keywords: chemicals), the mind intensifies images to secrete hormones/biochemicals strong enough to produce a desired response (in the same fashion as drugs). Dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, testosterone, estrogen, cortisol...Inevitably, this practice wears out the body and opens to door to fatigue, illness, increased pain, self-destruction.

In my case, adrenal fatigue.

The mind is powerful. We have the option to choose all this or the latter- to mend the wound.

Many call the process of mending, forgiveness. Not sure if this is the proper word but revenge, even achieved through the imagination, seems to be disadvantageous and detrimental.

Save a life. Stop the bleed. Mend the wound.