Dear me,
So I woke up this morning and while doing my meditation I said “Today, I will slow down and really LISTEN to my inner voice.” Since I was at work, that meant tuning into what I should listen to (if anything) and whether or not I should take a lunch break to check on the piano info in person vs.calling and a few other small decisions about how the day *around* the work tasks would be.
Keeping in mind that my #1 goal is to drastically reduce judgement and my inner critic – I found it deeply amusing or…rather…totally trippy that the one hayhouse radio program I decided to tune into had on guests who just published a book called “Reform Your Inner Mean Girl” WHAT?!! (Yes, I might have purchased it!). It came with a really quick quiz to identify which type of Inner Mean Girl voice or voices are my loudest.
Here’s my top two:
Overly Optimistic, Partying Cheerleader with a score of: 19
The Overly Optimistic, Partying Cheerleader is the one who tells you that everything will work out for you, even if you are about to dive headfirst into a self-sabotaging choice. Her job is to make you feel good and happy in the moment, consequences be damned—it’s all about instant gratification. She cajoles you into making choices you later regret.
Overly Optimistic Partying Cheerleader Instant De-Activator: Feel. Instead of trying to escape your feelings or hard truth, stop, sit down, and ask yourself, “What feeling am I trying to avoid?” Let yourself have the feeling and watch possibilities open up.
AND
Head Tripper with a score of: 18
The Head Tripper is the rational, practical skeptic, whose job it is to discount your intuition and anything that feels too “touchy-feely” or “woo-woo.” She prides herself on your ability to not cry, to be unshakable, and to keep your emotions under wraps. She makes you feel weak for having emotions, and she makes you give up on your dreams because they aren’t “realistic.”
Head Tripper Instant De-Activator: Get out of your head and tune into your body. Put your hand on your heart, close your eyes, take three deep breaths and notice how your body feels. Say out loud, “My body feels… My body is telling me …”
Well, consider that quiz nailed!! Can’t wait for the book – THAT is going to be an eye opening read!!
Then I decided that I would go visit the piano shop – it had both new and consignment sales there. I brought a copy of the original sales slip from 1978 with me (had the serial # on it) and I had taken a couple of photos on my phone. I hoped that by going in there and just naively asking what they thought it might be worth that I could bypass the whole appraisal process. It worked! The gentleman was very nice and told me what price he would set if they were to take it on consignment – $300. Oddly, that’s around the value I had been guessing at. Then he gave me the numbers for some movers.
Since I *didn’t* want to be the Overly Optimistic Partying Cheerleader, I did NOT immediately email the gal who has already expressed interest in the piano. Yes, in the past I would feel like some overly excited goober firing off a crazy sounding email making me seem psycho desperate to foist this piano on this poor woman who has shown serious interest, but also could still take it or leave it.
Instead,I put that info in my purse and decided to wait until I got home so that I could sit with it a bit.
Then since I had to tackle the mind numbing time sheet audit project, I decided to have some fun and tune into the Padres opening day baseball game on the radio. That was a blast even though they lost. I took little breaks to drop in on my favorite fan blog site and caught up with all those crazy people – some of whom I have now known online for 10 years!
Connectivity – the online version 🙂
Came home and composed a thorough, rational email about the piano, did an hour of bookkeeping and then listened to a fun podcast and watched some comedy shows on the DVR and laughed loud enough to scare the cats. Oh, and I didn’t multi task through any of that. I just sat, worked, listened, and watched, Don’t even know where my phone was all that time!
And it FELT good!
I also remembered to check in with a friend who I was worried about, pinged another I haven’t heard from in a few weeks, chatted with Alex, made sure Nick was OK (he had a big probation meeting this morning – went fine).
In other words – slowing down, listening, trusting and following my instincts went kinda well today.
I do realize that I get so seriously wrapped up in this self improvement, soul connectivity focus that I might forget to just chillax and have some fun 😉
I am grateful that today presented some opportunities to be playful and have fun with people and that I listened to my need to do that.
I am grateful as always that whatever information or guidance I need shows up all around me – that description of the Head Tripper is so glaringly, obviously ME! Yes, I own the other one too, but I am not quite sure how that ended up one point ahead. OTOH since the solution to both is to FEEL, well…..again..nailed it!
Be kind, be loving, just be.
Torrey Pines Reflections 