As usual, I had no idea why I’d woken up, but I did know what was about to follow: a good hour or so of chasing thought after thought in the middle of the night. I had more than one reason to be anxious. My business was in a vegetative state. My 40+ job applications had gone nowhere. And now, all of a sudden, the government was harassing me for tens of thousands of euros in tax payments that should have been done and dealt with years ago. Somehow, thinking sessions at 3 AM are never productive.
“Am I starting to reach the end of my rope?” “What if I don’t get a real win any time soon?” “What else can I even try to do?” After a solid 60 minutes of this and other mean comments, I looked at my thoughts and, for the first time, I noticed their colors. They were all black. “That can’t be good,” I mused. “No wonder it’s so dark in here.”
I let some of the thoughts pass, and they made way for others. Some of them were specifics of how I might handle my problems. Those were red, I believe. Others were more wholesome, even hopeful. They shone blue. Eventually, I remembered that I would neither solve my problems nor fall off the edge of the world that night and drifted back to sleep. But one idea stuck around: Inside my mind, I can paint the walls however I like. When it’s too dark, I can throw in some green. And when everything is yellow, I might mellow it out with some gray. You have this power too, you know?
We all have difficult seasons. We’ve all felt anxious at 3 AM. But you can choose the color of your thoughts. Don’t forget to bring your brush—and dip it into whichever bucket will let you paint the next sunrise.
