Monday Afternoon Car Thoughts

Here I am at the park again. I didn’t get to return last week even though I wrote about how much I like taking breaks. I had a lunch meeting one day, worked through the next day and then went out to lunch another day.

Last time I wrote I mentioned the books I was reading. Well, I finished the second one, The Untethered Soul. I liked it even better than Broken Open.  Granted, they are not the same style book, but I think I liked the cut-to-the-chase style of the second one better.

The book starts out talking about the voice in your head and how to step back and disconnect yourself from it. In a way I think I have already done that, thanks in large part to a great therapist I used to see. But I can remember back to the days where the voice inside my head was not very nice and really not very healthy. I’m not saying I have no inner voice now, but it’s not a jerk. In the rare moments that it is a jerk, I tell it to shut up.

Later in the book, the author talks about how everyone has pain inside them and that you can either hold on to it and try to protect yourself from anything that touches that nerve, or you can deal with the pain and let it go.

He used a great analogy of having a thorn in your arm that pressed against a nerve. Every time the thorn was touched or bumped it would cause pain, but if you were really careful and didn’t let anything touch it, you could live with it. In order to keep yourself from accidentally bumping it, you would build a device that would keep you from rolling onto it while you slept, and keep people from bumping into you when you went out. The down side of this device is that no one would be able to get close to you, even people you love.

The point is, you do the same thing when you have an old hurt that you can’t let go. If you build up these walls or these rules about what’s allowed or not allowed, then you’re essentially building a prison around yourself. And what kind of life is that to live?

The obvious solution is to remove the thorn and to deal with the pain in the moment and then let go of it.

Again, I can thank my former therapist for getting me started on that path years ago, though I didn’t realize at the time what it meant. I used to hold on to so much pain. I would cry at the sight of an Operation Smile ad, because it struck such a nerve with me. If someone made a joke about blondes or about a person with a lisp, I would raise my hackles. And don’t even get me started on how I felt and reacted to anything related to my former religion.

I’m not saying that I am now floating on a cloud of enlightenment or anything, but I am definitely more calm and content than I used to be. Much of that is because I have learned to let things go. Let it go! Live your life and let go of the people and the circumstances that have done you wrong. Life is too short to hold grudges and waste energy on negativity.

I didn’t mean for this post to turn into a motivational moment, but I think I may have just decided what my next Toastmaster speech will be about!

Time for me to head back to the office.  Namaste, friends!