ABANDONED PROPERTIES

 

     This picture says it all regarding this time of year. The new year's resolutions have been made and now that the winter sloggs on, broken, with the attitude "Forget it, bring on the whipped cream!" It's an abandoned photo from a box left in my husband's storage building. Someone, somehow, walked away from the story that this image tells. Yet, when I came across it the other day, it triggered my own stories of all hope is lost, bring on the whipped cream. I have had those semi-desperate moments in my own life. And good for me because sometimes, letting it go, abandon all hope, is the very right thing to do.

     I woke up early one morning last week. I believe it was around 3:30AM and for the life of me I couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up with the intentions of getting the day started. I did fine until after lunch, then suddenly I dozed off at my desk. I must have slept at least 10 minutes with my head laying on the back of my office chair before I woke up with a start, looking all around to see if a customer had walked in while I napped.  The coast was clear but I immediately started beating myself up mentally. I caught myself as I heard this statement shoot through my brain "If Phil had caught you napping, he'd have all kinds of comments to make about that." And the contrarian in me asked the questions "Why do you assume that? Phil knows you woke early, and he, himself, might have had the same thing happen. He is not unreasonable. He ain't your Daddy. So who is actually doing the criticising?"

    For years, I have listened to motivational tapes and lectures. I have heard them talk about the tape we have playing in our heads. The tape of your mother or father's voice as they criticize you about a million and one flaws. Or maybe it was a sibling, friend, teacher, acquaintance, lover, or enemy picking at you. What I never heard them say is that the voice in our heads is actually, most often, our own voice running foreman on the criticising. And it was me saying all that stuff to myself - "You are going to disappoint someone, you have come up short once again, you are pathetic." These were my words. And I had to laugh. I have been fooling myself all these years. Now, I find myself noticing my inner nudge. I tell her to "shut up" and "stop pushing me around" as I try to get clear what I want to do. I bring on the mental whipped cream as I try my best to abandon this old thinking. 

    I've got more to add to this later in the week. Until then I am also posting this lovely photo I took of a room in a house that my daughter and her husband saw as they looked for a new home.  

 

 

 

So peaceful and serene.