Some days look and feel like a bowl of cooked spaghetti.
Things are all tangled up and intertwined.
The day might not start like that though. It might look like spaghetti straight out of the packet, all nice and straight, uniform and individual….until it goes into the saucepan.
And then it all starts to kick off.
As the heat of various situations gets to you and the day comes to a simmer, things start to get sticky and you feel yourself getting in a tangle and under strain. It can turn into a bit of a hot mess and you can get very upsetti.
So, yes, spaghetti is like life. It’s winding and full of twists and turns.
“Mental spaghetti” is what you get when your emotions and feelings get twisted together and all those strands criss-cross each other making it hard to think clearly.
In situations like this you might be tempted to throw your bowl of spaghetti at the wall and who would blame you?
But even when it all feels too much and you feel like you are losing your way, you can still take your bowl of spaghetti and turn it into a tube map.
That takes a lot of work and it depends on how many lines your tube network has but you can try to organise and shape them to get some order back.
Seeing all those strands jumbled together can look daunting but we can do something with them and get back on track if we try.
A life less tangled is what one yearns but sometimes though, that just isn’t possible so we have to make the most out of a bad situation and turn it in our favour.
Or should I say flavour?
How about we add some unctuous tomato sauce, herby meatballs and Parmesan?
In other words, if we can’t untangle the mess, we can add other mental ingredients to the situation and do something positive with them.
This involves reconceptualising, reframing and flipping the narrative in true pastafarian style. That bowl of spaghetti might not feel so bad now. Use what you have and share what you make.
It all boils down to this: the mind as a whole is one big bowl full of strands of spaghetti but nothing is ‘in pasta bowl’ if we put our minds to it!
Live and cook in the moment and remember, whatever happens, you’re pasta-tively amazing!