It was pretty windy here at the weekend, and as I opened my bathroom window, a gust blew it wide creating a vortex so strong, that a large solid wooden mirror that has been in the same place for 5 years, was blown forward, smashing most of the contents on the shelf it was sat on as it crashed to the floor. Perfume bottles, shells, and other breakable goodies lay in pieces on the bathroom floor, glass everywhere, the smell of Coco Chanel cruelly filling the air. The mirror was face down and all I could think of was the 7 years of bad luck I was going to have. However, as I lifted it, I was amazed the glass was still in one piece and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I got on with clearing up the carnage.
Bad luck or good luck, you don’t have to have an anxiety disorder to fuel the paranoia triggered if you are forced to walk under a ladder, or indeed smash a mirror - or the euphoric high believing eternal riches and forever happiness will ensue if a black cat crosses your path. Good luck tokens, talisman, rituals, charms and superstitions are common in most cultures. And we firmly believe that if we break that ritual, or forget that lucky number, then disaster will follow. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – an athlete wears a particular item of clothing or performs a certain simple ritual before a race – wins, and perhaps they repeat and they win again and then the ritual or the clothing becomes synonymous with their success, rather than the performance. It then becomes paramount that they cannot win without their lucky pair of pants or tying laces up a certain way.
Having a certain set of numbers to play the lottery, or carrying a lucky pencil into an exam, really does not have any impact on the outcome of a result whatsoever, but it is embedded so much into our way of thinking we never question it. This is harmless if it does not go too far, but little by little, these rituals or superstitions can creep into a habit and can eventually lead to the belief that these actions can have a real consequence on your life. As an anxiety sufferer, I know for a fact that carrying a lucky talisman or wearing certain clothes or earrings, has given me the reassurance I may have needed and a way of controlling something (carrying the lucky item) that could not be controlled (future life). Anxiety feeds off irrationality and the brain is a perfect cooking pot. But it wasn’t until I started talking during therapy, I realised how much I had come to rely on these rituals or tokens of luck to survive.
For much of my life, I have had associations with certain numbers falling on certain days. I am not even going to go into this too much as really it looks bonkers written down – but I have a pattern of ‘spiky’ and ‘round’ numbers, days and months. In brief, Spiky is Good. Round is Bad. No rhyme or reason but for example, Tuesdays and Fridays are ‘spiky’ days as are the numbers 4, 14 and 28 and the months February, April, July and November; whereas, numbers 3, 5, 8, Mondays, Wednesdays, January and October are all ‘round’. If a plan or appointment was suggested and the date happened to fall on a Tuesday 14th or a Friday 17th - I would believe all was dandy with the world. An interview or exam on these days meant I would pass. And I would also assume the opposite would happen – a day was doomed even before it started if it happened on the wrong type of Wednesday.
I jest somewhat, and this sounds bizarre I know, but I have had many a conversation with people who don’t set their alarm clock on the actual hour, preferring a 7.01am or 6.59am rather than dead on 7am, or fill their petrol tank so either all the numbers tally to a whole number, or match so all numbers are even or odd. Or those that say every time they happen to glance at the clock, they see the time as 11.11 and take it as an omen, good or bad.
We incorporate these simple rituals, patterns and bizarre behaviours into our daily lives and they allow us to feel better about ourselves. If we wish on a lucky star, throw coins into a fountain, and say hello to Mr Magpie, we think it has some underlying magical influence on us – and if by chance some good comes out of a day we crossed our fingers or tapped on a bit of wood before choosing a lottery ticket, we are fulfilling our own beliefs. But scarily, we also believe if we do not do these things, these small things we can control, we may jinx our own future - and this is when naïve habits and quirky rules can become compulsive. For those who truly suffer, it can become all consuming. To not be able to go out of the house without checking you have all the rules you have set yourself can be debilitating, exhausting and soul destroying. I never got to this point, but at times I certainly felt I had better days if I saw one of my lucky numbers on a bus on a Tuesday in November on the way into work, justifying it as a good omen, giving me the boost needed.
Pragmatic souls know that you can’t influence the future by magical thinking. They know the clock displays 12.59 as many times as it does 11.11, and that the world isn’t going to end if you don’t match up the numbers on the digital display on a fuel pump. We are humans and do not have the ability to predict or control by telepathy or wishful thinking. Rolling a double-six only works in board games, not real life.
Part of my own therapy for anxiety, has been to disassociate my brain’s belief from any form of magical thinking, which is very hard after years and years of conditioning. And I am not even that superstitious (well – the spiky number thing aside). Over time, I have had to purposefully walk under ladders, open my umbrella indoors and allow myself to spill salt without doing the counteractive action of throwing a pinch over my right shoulder... or is it the left? And the point of these exercises? The point being that my brain breaks the habitual belief that a thought will have consequences on actions and vice versa. And although my heart stopped last weekend when the mirror fell and for a split second, I reverted to the old me – I was really just peeved an expensive bottle of perfume had been wasted.
I have learnt quite late in life, that it really doesn’t matter if you have forgotten to make a wish when blowing out a candle. You cannot control future actions by crossing your fingers. Having a lucky rabbit’s foot doesn’t ward off illness and rolling a double six certainly does not prevent personal loss.
And if magical thinking really worked – with all the millions of good luck charms there are in the world – how on earth did the turmoil of 2020 happen?
© The Real Tilly Fairfax
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