Did you know that on this day, Friday the 13th, it’s estimated by the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute that 17 to 21 million people in the United States are kinda paranoid?
It’s apparently the most feared day and date in history.
In Finland, National Accident Day is always Friday the 13th, helping to remind people to be careful. And in the Netherlands, statistics show that fewer accidents happen on Friday the 13th because everyone’s being hyper alert.
A famous 1972 accident happened on Friday the 13th: a plane crashed in the Andes. Some of the survivors, stuck in the snow but still alive, are famous for surviving because they ate some of the dead passengers.
I remember that from when I was a kid. Ew.
Wow, OMG! Friday the 13th!
Don’t you love spooky stories?
And….sometimes spooky stories are very, very spooky. As in, they are truly alarming.
But only if you believe them to be true.
So let’s inquire.
What’s creepy about a date in your life, what gives you the heebie-jeebies about an anniversary you always remember?
(My mom says heebie-jeebies).
Have you lost something or someone? Did something difficult happen? When you think about it, are you afraid of getting hurt again, emotionally or physically, or of death?
After I first got divorced, when 11/11 came along, I felt sad.
That used to be a powerful date…but now….it’s a sad date!
How do you react when you feel forgotten, lost, afraid, hurt, or terrified and you remember it because of the date?
When I have felt this way, and believed my worst fears were true, I’ve kept myself really tiny and small, I’ve stayed home, I’ve avoided speaking to people, I’ve had a hard time sleeping.
Memories crashed through my head.
But with self-inquiry, you can imagine who you’d be without your thoughts!
For some strange reason, when I was a kid I loved Friday the 13th and would say “this is a GOOD luck day!”
I’d feel kind of impish.
So without my fearful story about a date, perhaps I’d be playful and impish again!
If you didn’t have a reference for day, time, numbers, meanings….
….who would you be?
Who would be without your belief in anniversary dates, frightening days, haunted times?
For me, without the belief that 11/11 means “marriage that broke apart” I realize that 11/11 is INCREDIBLE.
I love 11! Maybe it came first, before I chose it for a marriage event in 1990 a long time ago. Ha!
I still love 11/11!
What if you turned your memory-associated difficult sad dates around to the opposite instead?
Instead of the memory of that date being all-awful…could it be that now, in this moment, it’s only a memory?
It doesn’t mean you’ll forget about that past event, or person, or place, or time….
….it just doesn’t have to be 100% tragedy and drama. It doesn’t have to FEEL bad.
It could even be a gift, a joyful moment, a hat-tip to that vision, an awareness of what is here now that is new, different, an invitation, a possibility.
It could happen, if you inquire.
“So reality and the story never match; reality’s always kinder….You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.” ~ Byron Katie
Love, Grace