Saturday, June 20, 2020.
So I’ve been reading a lot about mindfulness and self-awareness lately. How that being able to identify yor emotions and feelings as they come actually helps you manage them better.
You know how Saturdays are. Totally devoted to chores. Like, even if you cleaned the whole place the previous day, you just have to look busy on a Saturday—because, it’s Saturday.
I find that I really hate washing toilets a lot (I mean, who doesn’t?); so I have this little trick that helps me. I basically don’t eat anything till I’m done. And it works like magic— or delayed gratification. Whichever.
So I basically don’t eat till I’m done. And considering that I love to work with music, and try to sing along, and maybe even dance (when I’m sure no one is watching), it takes a little bit longer.
So at this very moment, I’m just singing along to one of my favourite songs from the Twilight Saga, and day dreaming about the sort of thing you day dream about when you listen to A Thousand Years. I’m just doing that when my phone rings.
At this point I should probably say how phones and I are like sworn enemies. I think phones are totally for texting, and you shouldn’t call, ever, except it’s an emergency and you just can’t type.
[Telephone Rings]
Me: Oh nooo. Who’s there?
Voice Over: It’s me, Chicken Little. I just wanted to say, the sky is falling down—
Me: Oh great, thank you. But you should've just texted.
But I’m so happy, Christina Perry’s A Thousand Years is playing, and the world is such a beautiful place. What could possibly go wrong?
“Hello?” I say, with the signature of a smile in my voice. I read somewhere that you should always smile when you say hello, because you sound friendlier, and not like you’re about to snap someone’s head off- even if you are.
So.
“Hey, how’re you doing? Now about your work, the client made a lot of corrections…”
At this point, my smile is wobbling off my face like wetin dey occur?
And is it just me, or did I hear italics on ‘a lot of’?
I’m almost going off on a tangent when one mind (and by the way, we do actually have two minds. According to Daniel Goleman. Yaaay?).
So one mind says to me, “Ngozi, calm down and listen”. I calm down in time to hear “I’ll send it to you now so you can look through”.
The sensible part of me says “Sure, no problem”. and they hang up. The moment I drop the phone, my face transforms into a scowl (at least I think it does). I’m suddenly so tired, and I just realise I’ve been working for what, 4hours? And the world doesn’t look so beautiful anymore, and who is that matching my freshly mopped floors????
So everything's going down hill at this point.
Mind 1: How can he ask me to redo this? Does he know how long it took me to get that together on short notice? How I basically worked 10hours non-stop? How I missed my favourite telenovela on FoxLife because I was so exhausted afterwards, I couldn't keep my eyes open, even for Fernanda and her shenanigans? Does he??
Mind 2: True; but consider that you made a lot of research and learned a lot of new stuff. I mean did you know about this and that until then?
Me: Hmmm
Mind 1: Still. Why does it always seem this client is never satisfied? I mean, the last time I did…
Mind 2: Don’t be ridiculous; it’s just policy. That’s all.
Me: I dunno…
And just then, someone remarks on something, and I go all passive aggressive on them.
[Insert volcanic eruption here].
Afterwards, I call my elements and sit with them.
“Tell me, why are you angry?”
“I’m tired, I feel irritated.
And I’m mad because all the effort I put into that stupid work wasn’t acknowledged, and I have to redo it. And I don’t want to redo it, because I have a lot of things to do. And I don’t want to think about the other stuff that’s due very soon because then I’d freak out even more.
And can’t people not match wet floors?”
So I probe a little further, and I realise that I’m actually scared that my work isn’t good enough — that I’m not good enough. So I have to step in and remind myself that I am not my work, and my work does not define me. It could be beautiful today, and just about average tomorrow, but none of these labels define me. It’s just what I do.
And I find that I’m scared I won’t have enough time for myself, beacuse I feel lately that a lot has been spiraling out of control and I want to hold the control reins.
Oh and lastly, I find that I don’t want people matching my floors because I need to have an outcome I’m in control over.
Clean floors.
That would give me a sense of control—predictability, stability.
And I realise one more thing too.
That you can’t really withstand stress so much when you’re hypoglycaemic; so I take a hot bath, and wear nice clothes, and treat myself.
The moral of the story is, sometimes there’s not a single event that ticks us off- sometimes it’s a potpourri of events. Like hypoglycaemia. And some disappointing news. And someone tracking mud on your clean floors.
And if I understand how these things affect me, they don’t have control over me. I can decide to put them away, the way a child puts a toy away, or play with them. Whichever way, I don’t feel helplessly doomed to fly off the handle.
So I guess I was just sharing this, just so it’s out there. There’ll always be things to make us upset; it’s how we manage our response that counts.
Oh, and I’m so much better now, thanks for asking. 😊
