The Emotional Sea – The Third Battle

When you have been discarded, you face three battles in order to secure your freedom. The first is the Emotional Battle which you always lose until you learn not fight it. The second is the Heart V Head Battle which must be fought many times until you finally overcome the powerful effects of emotion and allow your cool, hard logic to dictate. Once that battle has been won, you have managed to navigate a way through the emotional ocean and then you have reached dry land on the other side. This is where the third battle is joined. This dry land provides you with a firmer foundation and just like the discovery of the New World, boundless opportunities. You are no longer prone to the vagaries of the swelling and dramatic ocean of emotions. That is not to say that your emotions have been switched off. Far from it. Instead, the solidity of this land is a reflection of the greater control you now have over your emotions as you ally them with the logic that you have regained. No longer do you feel overwhelmed. You are not beset by anxiety. Fear does not maintain a near permanent grip on your stomach. You were repeatedly drowned as you tried to swim the emotional ocean alone in the first battle. You saw yourself swamped and capsized on numerous occasions as reach time you increased your intellect and understanding as you built larger and more seaworthy vessels until finally you navigated your war through that broiling sea of feelings and now you stand on firm, dry and solid land. Your critical thinking has increased, your sense of calm has bloomed and you have gained greater control.

You stand before a land of opportunities and this is where you are now able to make the decisions. In the previous two battles you were overwhelmed and then often on the back foot. Here, in this final battle, you have the opportunity to seize and maintain the upper hand. You have so many choices available to you now.

You may decide to build a large tower and secrete yourself inside. You have the sturdy foundation now on which to construct this edifice. You are safe and secure high up in this tower. You admit visitors but only those that you know can be trusted. Occasionally you hear a knock in the dead of night. You make your way to the balcony and look down from your towering height to see us stood outside knocking on the door and seeking admittance. You may feel the surge of those emotions once more but you have greater control now. You may call out and wave, issuing a polite greeting and no more. You may decide just to turn around and leave us to our ineffectual knocking. Either way in this battle you have seized control and you are far better equipped to make rational decisions which suit you and prevent you from being wholly governed by those turbulent emotions.

You may decide to forge ahead and seek out new adventures in this land. You meet new people and form fresh and lasting friendships, perhaps even finding someone with whom you can share intimacy and romance. As you trek through this land, gathering new friends and revisiting those who were conned into severing the ties with you, you remain vigilant for out of nowhere we might appear. We might strike, lurching through a crowd hurling insults. You are better armed this time and able to shield yourself before moving away, refusing to be drawn into responding and a war of words like you once might have done. It may be the case, as you embrace these new horizons that we appear, smiling and benign, sidling up to you and taking you by surprise. The risk always remains, for if you are abroad within this new land, you cannot place yourself behind sturdy defences. Thus, you remain exposed to ambush and approach. You remain better equipped than you were, as a consequence of your gathered learning, your increased understanding and ongoing recovery. You are in a better position to rebuff the ambush, refusing to engage and making your departure to safer ground. Sometimes you may be caught and those emotions wash about you as we try to haul you back across the sea to a time when you were alone and going under the lashing waves. This risk always remains.

You may opt to establish an estate where you do not take refuge in some tower, but instead you create a place of familiarity where everyone is known to you and you are known to them. You have your supporters in clear view and whilst you may not tread down the path less travelled in search of new territories you reduce your risk of us appearing out of nowhere. These familiar places enable you to maintain clear lines of sight so that if we do make an appearance you are able to take suitable evasive action.

This final battle takes the form of repeated skirmishes as we seek to catch you unawares and drag you back to an earlier battle where our prospects of success are maximised. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes one of our devious ploys catches you unaware and we scale your tower and appear on your balcony like that once desired Prince Charming again and your defences are breached. Other times you repel our approaches, turning your back or cutting us down with new learned techniques which force us to withdraw. You may see no action for weeks, months and even years as new reaches you that we are fighting on other fronts, seemingly content to leave you be. At least for the time being. Then out of nowhere you may reduce your vigilance and we are by your side, seeking to snake our tendrils around you once again. In this final battle you now know what to look for. When we march on to the battle field you see and take heed of the red flags which stream behind us. You have learned methods by which you can counter and neutralise our manipulations. You have established safe territories to which you might retreat if the need arises. You have fashioned your own armoury in this new land of hope and promise. You now know how you can wound us and now, exerting greater control, you do so which gives us no option but to disengage from the skirmish and skulk away to lick our wounds and regroup.

This final battle takes place in a land where the battlefield, for the first time, is more of your choosing than ours. You have better equipped to fight this battle and whilst there remains a risk of defeat and you being ensnared once again, it is far less than in the previous two battles. You are battle-hardened and those scars are worn as badges of honour as you stand tall for the first time in, well, you cannot recall when that last happened, but it has happened at last.

Thus, this is the final battle post discard. The battle that takes place on dry land. Should you overcome the first two battles, this is where you will find yourself. Now you understand where you will end up as you deal with the fallout from being discarded. Now you are aware of what will happen, what to expect and how you are in a better position to keep winning the skirmishes in this final battle. This only leaves one question remaining. How long will this final battle last?

It will continue until one of us no longer lives.