Practice Pause

Over the weekend, I arrived confidently before 4pm, the Post office closing time, to post a package. The Post man equally confident, told me I was 3 hours late and the post office closed at 1pm on a Saturday. With realisation came fear- that I would now be stuck with the items I had meant to return but hadn't till the last minute, loosing both the use of the ill-fitting items and the money that would now not be put to better use. 

Then blame, that I could have been here on time if only I hadn't taken a nap I now regretted. Then my mind flitted to something entirely unrelated but potent with the familiar taste of blame, before I had any awareness of my spiraling thoughts and remembered my practice of pause. 

American motivational Author, Louisa Hay, gives a good tool for the "oh shit" moments of life like this. She suggests saying something along the lines of "all is well and I am safe, this situation will easily resolve for my highest good", in the face of the mental spiral that follows. 

Just saying this quietly to myself changed the direction of my thoughts and allowed me to access self-compassion. It allowed me space to notice what was happening and notice something else too! 

I realised that the feeling I have always associated with disappointment was not disappointment at all! Yes, the post office closing registered disappointment as the data, but the meaning I gave it felt like the more punishing combination of regret, blame and self-flagellation that had escaped my notice because it felt justified after all  'I should feel disappointed'. 

With awareness and self compassion, seating between me and those feelings though, disappointment now didn't feel so heavy in an end-of-the-world way or a hopeless this-is-who-you are way. 

Now there was lots of space around it, lots of give in places that just a moment ago felt final. Now my racing thoughts shifted quickly in a constructive direction- "who knew what possibilities for redemption Monday would bring, what new directions or learnings an unexpected turn could take, how this would all turn out?". 

As I went my way, more in control of the direction of my own thoughts, I decided this experience had cracked wide open my writer's block and given me something to write about- meaning, see?