Does Something Haunt You?

Alo Sentio

It’s Latin, and when loosely translated to English, it means nourish your emotions. They are your rudder, and they let you know whether you are closer to your soul’s longing, or farther away. If you feel pain, you are focused on the wrong thing. Find something that makes you feel good to focus on, and things will be better in your life. Focus on things that make you feel pain, and you will find more things that make you feel pain. It’s really that simple. If that thought makes you angry, then try to figure out why you are protective of your pain. What does it bring you? What is the payoff? Sympathy? Being “right”? Preserving relationships with people who are also feeling pain about something? Figure out what the payoff is, and then ask yourself:

What do I want more? Happiness or the payoff?

The purpose of this blog is to bring visual beauty, uplifting thoughts and emotional support into your inbox. It is also a platform I am giving myself to express my own feelings about things in a way that I hope will validate yours in some way. Validation is hard to come by sometimes, and I am hoping to give you some. I am also hoping that what I write will make even just one person feel less alone. And maybe it will give you a laugh. I would love that.

I moved “alosentio” from its dedicated site to this one to save some moola, but I lost all my comments in the process, and although this blog has been active since 2019, all the dates are the same. Oh, well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Haunting is similar to fear but more subtle and longer-lasting, and usually attached to something that happened in the past. More like a regret of some sort. A decision you’re not sure was right. A road not taken. A missed opportunity. Something said that cannot be taken back. Something not said that it’s too late to say. A crossroad at which you have taken up permanent residence because you’re too afraid of possible future regret if you make the wrong choice. Paralyzed at the crossroad.

Guilt makes for a great ghost. It’s always right behind you, ready to steal your smile away if you dare to get happy about something. It taps you on the shoulder with its bony finger and glares at you with empty sockets until your joy is gone, if you let it.

One can certainly also be haunted by a lost love. The one that got away. The one you knew was right but couldn’t have. Or the one you had to leave because you knew it wasn’t right. What if I’d said this? What if I’d done that? It’s hard to know what to do sometimes, but if you wait too long…

I am haunted by regret at not speaking up and seizing an opportunity when I had the chance in certain situations. I felt like I was doing the “right” thing at the time, but how right it really was, I’m not so sure anymore. Do you have these ghosts?

Who ya gonna call?

Life is a kaleidoscope. You see something different every time you take a turn, and every single decision comes with good and bad. It’s this dualistic world we live in, and there is no one on this planet that makes all the “right” decisions all the time that always lead to happiness and no regret. If you feel the need for a change and you feel zero conflict about it, then it’s not really a decision, it’s just an action.

A decision is making a choice between two things that could be good or could be bad - a trade off. If you make a big change, it could bring you joy or regret. If you maintain the status quo, it could bring you comfort or soul-killing stagnation.

Here’s the thing: It’s likely that either decision will bring you some of both. Life is risky. You just have to figure out which positive outcome in both situations feels more compelling to you, and have faith that you will be rewarded for your courage if you decide to change your life.

If you are haunted by past indecision or inaction out of fear, give up those ghosts - they are dead! And repel future ones by trusting that your courage is a reward in itself, no matter how things turn out. If you never risk anything, you will never know how spectacular your life could really be.

And Happy Halloween! You get to dress up and be whoever you want.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Alo Sentio

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Who ya gonna call?