Everyday Canvas

Monsters and Friends

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

Prompt: Charles Darwin said, "We stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us." What are your thoughts about what's inside us? Do you ever check under the bed for old times sake?

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Do I ever check what’s under the bed? Not recently. I have a new bed, thanks to my son, for which I got rid of stuff like dust ruffles or bedskirts for good. My bedroom now is not fancy but down to its bare bones especially after I got rid of the rugs. So, nothing can hide anywhere.

As to the monsters inside yours truly, don’t get me started. I think, however, I am winning over them.

Unfortunately though, it took a lifetime to gain some leverage over those impostor monsters. In my case, they were (sometimes still are) feelings and thoughts about my own self. "You didn't try enough!" “You’re wrong, again!” "Your work is not good enough!" “Don’t even try! You can’t do it.” “You’re not good enough. Be like so and so!” “Others fare better.” “There you go again. Your luck always runs out.” “Did you see what you just did? You goofed again.” “You’re just not lucky enough, good enough, strong enough…etc.”

These monstrous thoughts have tucked me in some kind of a comfort zone, from which I rarely wander away or if I do, it is after weighing all the pros and cons. I can now pinpoint most of my safety mechanisms that begin with good intentions but end up with dubious effects.

As to my monsters' origin, most of them emerged as inherited behavior since I had a wonderful mother who attended to all my physical needs and taught me many things, but she was also highly critical with a good deal of negative talk, which I internalized.

An exaggerated but similar situation happens with all abused children, people with spousal violence, and victims of bullies, whether the abuse is verbal or physical or both.

At the end, however, we have to really put the blame our very own minds that take the info fed into them and change those into poisons and hidden monsters.

There's no use in blaming others while we feed and go along with the monster-maker inside us, is there!

For: "Space Blog" 

Prompt: From afinger83’s "Invalid Item" 
“Secrets that you know you can share.
Support that lasts a lifetime”


Isn't it so nice and comforting to have a best friend through life with whom you can be absolutely frank and who does not care about how you do things, how you look, or how you have fared in the world, since they accept you just the way you are?

But who can those best friends be? They can be in our immediate family just like one of my cousins who is a year younger than me has been my best friend for life. Then a life partner can become a best friend, too, as my husband was for me. A teacher, a parent, a workmate, even friends in faraway places can give us support that may last a lifetime.

Sometimes, even a sincere simple word uttered to comfort us becomes a support and a motto for life, too. My grandmother’s “This, too, shall pass.” has become one of those comforting mottoes for me.

Then, when people, our best supportive people, pass away or are unreachable in some way, what they were to us and their words stay with us as long as we live as gifts of a lifetime.