Scenario Stop!

Ever know someone like this? The person who is sitting across from you, next to you, or talking over the phone with you who is going on and on with the “what if” scenarios. No they are not a detective trying to put together facts of a case to catch the bad guy they are your family member, your friend, your neighbor, your coworker or even someone you just met who has something going on in their lives that has caused them to travel to the land of “what if”. It is in this land that they try to find some sort of resolution. All the while you sit there firmly planted in reality listening to them run on and on quietly asking yourself why can't they just wake up to the truth. It just is.

Reality isn’t so bad, is it? It’s real, it holds answers, and it is at least comfortable to be in - well most of the time. So while you sit and listen, you continue to ask yourself why this person is over in the land of “what if” and not over in the land of reality. The answer is so clear even you can see it, not to mention the fact that they themselves have only stated it about a hundred times during their conversation with you. Why are they denying it and instead trying to find the loophole?

These are questions that one in reality can ask but one in the land of “what if” will not want to answer. I used to visit the land of “what if” many times to try to figure out bad experiences in my life with relationships. In fact, I would venture to say that the population in the land of “what if” holds a high percentage of bad relationship residents. The initial question that grants one access to this far off land is usually one that asks why. Once that question has been asked, the door opens, one enters, and one would never notice how quickly that door shuts as they wander off deeper into the land of “what if” as their endless what if questions begin.

Here are some of the questions from the land of “what if” that many of us will recognize. What If it is because I didn’t communicate to them what they needed to hear? What if it is because that night we went out and they wanted to go see an action flick and I wanted to see a chick flick they just gave into me and said no more after this, their out of here? What if I didn’t express my feelings correctly about needing a little time to myself to do some running around things they just didn’t need to be there for and they felt pushed out of my life somehow? What if it is because that night I needed someone to hear me out and they thought everything I was unloading was all about them? What if it is because their friends liked me and that was too much for them to take? What if it was that little hussy that was always hanging around, maybe they finally got their attention and now them? What if it is because they never really liked my best friend and I had them around? What if? What If? WHAT IF!

Have I driven you crazy yet? Good, because I drove myself crazy and I can pretty much say the residents of “what if” land are doing the same to themselves. The question became one day how do I make it stop because living in this land of “what if” was making my life stop. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t eating. I would laugh but only on the outside. I was driving away my friends. I certainly was not about to approach the person who put me in this land with my questions, my concerns, my feelings, my need for the truth in the answers I was seeking. I was cutting myself short on a lot of things that did not need to be.

Reality is this, we all have to deal with our feelings, our fears, our hormones or more simply put the rollercoaster ride that is the ending finale of a relationship no matter how long or short of time that may have been. Furthermore, the truth is that the one person who was the other half of the relationship that caused all of this simply does not go through any of what the other person is going through. Unfair? Well, most definitely the answer is yes! But alas, it is simply the truth and that truth causes us to go into avoidance mode which leads us to the land of “what if”. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t fun, and it isn’t anything that any of us want. So, knowing all of that, are you ready to learn the truth about the land of “what if”? Good, here we go.

The truth about the land of “what if” is that it is run by the supreme ruler Scenario. This is the personal name I have given the ruler and once you know the rulers name the battle to go back to the land of reality can begin. Scenario is what you run yourself through when you ask the endless what if questions. It’s a fact that humans have imaginations, we see it every day in film, television, novels, our own lives, etc. Imagination is the magician in the land of “what if”. You ask the what if question, Scenario hears it and motions for Imagination to create the answer for you to mentally see, hear and feel. Whoever said that we aren’t all artists of some kind? The reality is that what we are seeing, hearing and feeling is an illusion. It is a made-up story to answer our question that avoids the truth that is reality.

My battle started in the bathroom mirror one morning after the end of an undesirable relationship. As per usual I was trying to go through my morning routine of showering, fixing my hair, brushing my teeth, putting in the contacts and putting on makeup while being delayed by numerous amounts of tears. Definitely not the way I intended starting my morning.

The cause of these numerous tears, yep you guessed it, I was off in the land of “what if” asking a million questions at a very fast rate and not loving the answer I was getting in return, the truth. See the truth of what happened hadn’t changed and nor was it going to. This is true for every resident in the land of “what if” but like I stated earlier when avoidance from that said truth leads you there…yeah well. In this instance I was once again used by a male that I let in my life AGAINST my better judgment. Lucky me, I had the fortunate opportunity to beat myself up on two fronts: one for letting someone in that even my dreams told me to dump and the second for not trusting the signs of what was really going on.

Finally, after tying to get the eye liner brush up to my eye for what felt like the zillionth time, I yelled out loud “Scenario Stop!” Mind you I live in an apartment building so if my neighbors heard me, they probably wondered what the heck I was yelling about as they know pets aren’t allowed and I live by myself. And you know what my mind stopped. I heard silence. Trust me after hearing yourself go on and on and round and round you can hear silence! Surprised by this I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Enough already. It sucks but this won’t get you over it. You’re a good person, he wasn’t.” Which of course sent me into more tears…remember that rollercoaster I was telling you about. One heck of a ride isn’t it. Rollercoaster parks should be knocking at my door for their next design. At least now I was dealing with real feelings and not just illusions that were created by Imagination.

Finally, late for work and now on the road, my mind once again started with the what if questions. Scenario heard my what if questions signaled Imagination to wave his wand and once again it started and once again, I yelled out loud “Scenario Stop!” Followed with the same result of my mind going silent, this time I tuned into the radio and well of course, the road. My battle against Scenario had officially begun.

I am here to tell you that the battle against Scenario is a never ending one, but it does get a lot better tons in fact. Much like a war once you start to fight something you start gaining ground. Once you gain ground you gain confidence that the fight can be won and that is what started happening to me. Imagine if you will that while venturing deeper and deeper into the land of “what if” that every time you yelled “Scenario Stop!” you turned around, saw through the illusion created by Imagination, and were able to take a step closer back to the door that leads to reality a reality that you were going to be able to deal with, recreate for yourself, and regain your life in. Sounded like the golden chalice to me and I wanted it.

You’re out there, you’re in “what if” land deep, you feel so lost but the thing is you’re not. The answer hasn’t changed because its reality and now its history. What do we know about history? We’ve learned the most important lesson in history is that we can learn from it so that we do not live to repeat it. Eventually, just as I did in my case, we will. Steps forward are lovely but they are nothing without the steps we take backwards. If we learn from those steps, the ones forward and the ones back, we are bound to live better lives.

Where does one start in their battle against Scenario? One of the best places to start is to find the one thing that you can grab onto in your spinning world and yell “Scenario Stop!” That one thing you grab onto can be anything. It can be making the tears stop so you don’t have to keep running while at work to find a place to cry to the words of advice that someone gave you that you want to follow. The goal is to make your world stop spinning, to end the feeling that you are in a void it is as simple as just feeling good for one minute followed by many minutes after. No of course it isn’t easy, what is when it requires us to kick our own butts back into shape. Here I go mentioning reality again but honestly where do you want to spend your time? In a land that holds your life back and not once will ever give you a real answer or in a reality where you can face the facts, learn from the experience, move past it, and make your own future even better? I know where I am headed, care to join me?

The golden chalice is whatever it is you decide to strive for. For me it was to get my appetite back, to forgive myself of not listening to my own soul screaming to get away from someone that was no good for me, to find ways to have confidence that I could trust myself to make choices again and most importantly, to really feel the joy that my family and friends were truly bringing me.

I have won the majority of my battles, and I will say that I made it out of the land of “what if” but man does it ever call you back to which I return with “Scenario Stop!” My hope for you is that you will be able to do the same.

Live in reality today so you can better understand what tomorrow brings.