Personal Symbolism

Today I was really, really stressed due to a variety of things, but those causes are unimportant to my thoughts at the moment.

This morning, I was starting to get to the point where I was afraid of having a panic attack in the middle of the classroom - but I know how to fix it. I got out a piece of paper and I forced myself to make calming squiggles and movements with the pen until I found something that just looked reassuring when you saw it. Imagine you're writing a cursive J, capitalized; right where the loop rejoins with the beginning of the line, it swirls back up, makes a heart shape, then loops back down into two lines, like a flag, and another one crossing those two. It looks like a distorted crane. Or, rather, a low-necked crane if it were to sit like a human.

I've done this before. Sometimes, forcing yourself to think calmly, and then coming up with a symbol to remind you of that willpower, can honestly be all you need, if you are strong enough. I drew it on my hand in ink, and I folded the original paper up into a triangle-shaped charm, which I wrote the final symbol on and stuck in my pocket, and I wrote the charm on all of my notes all through the day to keep my mind on happy thoughts. That's just how powerful the mind is. Maybe it's a tad hypocritical of me, considering my own mental health as it is, but if you literally demand that your brain whip itself into shape, you can conquer it, at least temporarily.

On that note, the charm is still in my pocket. On looking at it, it also has a sun symbol on it... it looks like a nonsymmetrical God's Eye, and a simplified "personal calm" marking that you can make in one line. But this pattern, I largely suspect (well, probably, know), was mostly just to keep my mind busy so that it couldn't stress itself out more.

...isn't that really just as good, though?