Food For Thought

Maybe it's because of my weakened physical health (10 days and counting with sinusitis, woof. I am officially "that girl" on the bus these days that everyone cringes to sit next to), but it seems that my sneaky little ego is upping it's efforts to make me feel less than stellar.

Reaching into its go-to bag of tricks, the ego has pulled out the following slightly less-than-loving messages;

* Lose weight. You look about as sexy as a tree stump.
* You are a terrible friend. It's a wonder you manage to keep any kind of social circle outside of Blanche, Dorothy, Sophia and Rose. And by the way, haven't you seen this episode 42 times already? How are you still laughing so hard?
* You suck as a daughter, sister, cousin, niece. What a disappointment you are to your family.  Tsk tsk. Shame on you.
* You've made so many past relationship mistakes there's no way you will ever be happy in a partnership again. Oh...you are currently happy? Ha. The other shoe is dangling, darlin'. You'll screw it up soon enough.

Yowza. Enter the swirling. You know that feeling? When one bad thought leads to another, pushing you down a critical path of nit picking, guilt carrying, self-hating judgments? As I was showering yesterday this kind of swirling was at an all time high. It was so bad, in fact, I realized that tears had been falling down my cheeks for a few minutes and I hadn't even noticed. My "Trish's Faults" list making was giving me a headache. What a craptastic way to start the week.

And then in the midst of my salty cheeked conditioning I suddenly heard my spirit say, ever so gently and quietly, let go, baby.

Phew. It was so good to hear from her.

There are certain things you can do to dig yourself out of these ego-driven funks. You can reach out to friends, go for a walk, have a dance party for one, take a bath, listen to good music, snuggle a snaggle toothed bulldog, etc etc etc. Actively shifting your perspective and placing yourself in positive scenarios is for sure a healthy and self-loving step to take towards sunnier days. But sometimes these things act as too-temporary band-aids. Sometimes to most effectively deal with the swirls you simply have to let go, baby. Stop clinging. Let it be. It is far better to be an observer of your life than a judge.  So just observe. Stop thinking so much and observe. Is it really necessary for you to make heads or tails of the past? Or can you let go and let it live there without your judgments?

As for the future? Like my sweet B said on the phone yesterday, "Eh, you don't need to worry so much about the future. Just be here now".

Let go or be dragged. Damn, ain't it the truth.

In Gratitude,

Trish

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