It starts so innocently. Just a tiny thought, “What if I left the oven on?” Reasonable, right? Sensible, even. But the spicy brain does not leave things at sensible.
Oh no. The spicy brain likes to take that harmless thought, feed it a steady diet of, “But have you considered THIS disaster?” and ‘what ifs’ until it grows legs. It doesn’t just grow legs though – it grows tentacles. Before I know it, that once innocent morsel of concern has evolved into a full-blown Kraken of catastrophic thinking, thrashing and writhing like it just escaped a deep-sea prison.
And let me tell you, once that Kraken is loose? It is a beast to contain.
One minute, I’m wondering about the oven. The next, my brain has run a marathon of disasters: the oven explodes, my house becomes ground zero, my neighbors hate me, the insurance company won’t pay and somehow this triggers the collapse of modern civilisation. All because I wanted to bake scones. Nice. Easy. Thanks brain.
The Kraken doesn’t stop there. Oh no, it cranks everything through the complicator, a mental megaphone that takes any reasonable concern and magnifies it into a world-ending threat. Then, just for fun, it launches those twisted possibilities into a mental firework display. Little worry ashes scatter and float through the air, eager to take root and multiply. And my spicy brain? It watches this apocalyptic show and whispers, “The end is nigh.”
Charming, right?
By the time I catch on, the Kraken is in a full frenzy – tentacles flailing, grabbing every benign thought and transforming it into something ominous. It doesn’t matter how unlikely the scenario; rational thoughts can’t factor at this point. My spicy brain is nothing if not creative. If there’s a 0.0001% chance of a thing going wrong, you better believe I’ve got a high-definition mental movie of it unfolding in 3D.
When the Kraken starts its dance of destruction, my only hope is to act fast – to recognise the path my spicy brain is on and slam the brakes before the beast gets too big to wrestle. I need distractions, grounding techniques, something to pull me back to earth before I float away on a tide of catastrophic nonsense.
Earthing is my lifeline. No matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing, I can ground myself. A couple of slow, deliberate breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I focus on the feel of my chest rising and falling. It’s simple, but it works. My body, bless it, always exists in the present. Unlike my brain, which is frequently on a dramatic quest to save the world from imaginary doom.
I engage my senses. What can I see? The texture of the wall, the color of the sky. What can I hear? The hum of the fridge, the distant bark of a dog. What can I feel? My feet on the floor, the weight of my hands. Each sensory check-in is like a rope tethering me back to reality, cutting through the chaos the Kraken loves to stir.
And when I anchor myself, the Kraken loses steam. It stops flailing. The tentacles retract. That monstrous, catastrophic thought shrinks back into something small and manageable. Maybe even cute again.
The spicy brain will always try to conjure new Krakens. That’s just part of the deal. But with enough grounding and a bit of humour, I can keep the beast from taking over. After all, I may have a spicy brain – but I’m the captain of this ship. And the Kraken? Well, it can thrash all it wants. I’ve got the wheel.
-Donna
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