Be Mindful of Negative Self-Talk

Negative self-talk can kill a person slowly. The post Following the Rules on the 28 Years Later blog can give you some idea of how devastating negative self-talk can be.

Mindfulness is a great defense against negative self-talk. If you're aware of your internal dialog, you can begin to challenge it and understand its origins. You'll probably discover that you're trying to live up to someone else's unreasonable expectations. Or you'll be telling yourself that the project you've been thinking about will be laughed at.

Do you feel that something's holding you back? Maybe that something is you!

Tune into your thoughts.

On the Passage of Time

The older we get, the faster time seems to slip by. Perhaps it's because each year, the ratio of that year to our life span gets smaller and smaller.

How Long Has That Been There?

I've done a fair amount of writing about Mindfulness and being in the Here and Now. I wish I could practice what I preach!

Yesterday, my wife and I walked our morning walk in the neighborhood that we lived in since 1995. On the way back I noticed something "odd in a tree" near our neighbor's house. As I got closer I noticed that it was in fact a flag or banner, and not the bloated hawk I thought it was.

It seemed inconceivable to me that a banner would be there, floating among the trees. So I looked more carefully and finally noticed the sturdy utility pole that the banner was mounted on. Apparently, our neighbors have had a utility pole about six feet from their house since before we moved into ours.

Maybe my inability to see the hugely obvious is a result of habitually tuning out all those crass advertisements that bombard us from roadsides and storefronts. Or maybe I'm just messed up.

Anyway, if I don't post for a while, it'll be because I'm out looking for large obvious things on our property. I'll let you know if I find anything.

Dream: The Mailman and Love-Making

My wife is in two places at once. She's lying here in bed with me. But she's also at the other end of the room receiving a package from the mailman.

I'm kissing her exposed breasts and also looking at her interact with the mailman. As I look at her standing across the room, I think how sexy she looks. She's wearing a white, short-sleeve jersey with dark blue piping, almost like a baseball uniform. But it's so sexy.

I'm not at all embarrassed about being in bed while the mailman is there. But eventually it occurs to me that the mailman might feel awkward. So, reluctantly, I get up out of bed and walk over to the mailman. My wife is no longer there.

I find out that my wife had told the mailman that we're refusing the package. The box is open, so I close it and tape it shut.

A few minutes go by. The mailman is gone, and I reassess the layout of this apartment. First of all, the door is unlocked, so I lock it. Then I wonder why the bedroom is open to the entrance way. It's not right.

Dream: Fishing While Sitting in the Lake

I'm at the lake with my wife and daughter. I'm sitting in the water on a concrete ledge, with my feet dangling off, not touching the bottom. The water is brown, murky, and it's halfway up my torso. For all I know it could be 100 feet deep.

I have a fishing rod with me, so I decide to cast the lure out and see what happens. I have to be careful not to snag my wife and daughter, so I don't swing the rod very much, and the lure doesn't go out that far. It goes only a few feet to my right.

I reel it back in and try again. This time I cast over to my left, and I manage to get it out about eight feet. The bail hasn't caught the line right, so I'm holding onto it with my fingers, trying to keep it taught. I can tell I've caught something already, and I wonder if this thin line I'm using will hold. It feels like only four pound test.

Finally I manage to set the bail properly, and I can reel in. There definitely is a fish on the end of the line. But it's not giving me much of a fight at all. It rises to the surface. It's a bass, only about 10 inches long, and it appears to be dead. It's curled a bit and listing on its side.

I feel as though I shouldn't have cast the lure. I didn't want to catch any fish. And now I'm stuck with a fish on the end of the line, sitting in very deep water. How am I going to get the fish off the lure? I have no place to set down the rod!

The fish seems to wake up, and it dives down below my feet. Now the line is between my legs. I manage to untangle myself. As I bring the fish back up, I feel something brush against my feet and legs. It feels as though a person is down there grabbing at the fish with his hands.

I feel miserable and exposed. I want to get out of the water.

This is Life -- Hawk Escort

This is going to sound like a dream, but it's not.

I was driving home from work in my wife's Ford Escort when I noticed large wings flapping above me. At first I thought it was a crow.

But then it gradually descended while keeping ahead of the car. I noticed it was a red-tailed hawk. It was pacing the car, flying directly in front of me and a bit above me. I was going about 35 mph.

The raptor started slowing, so I applied the brake a bit. I wanted to keep it in sight. Then it drifted to the left side of the road. It slowed even more and sank lower.

At one point, the bird and I were level and neck-&-neck, and we were just one car width apart. I turned my head to watch it. But then it either slowed dramatically or veered away. I almost think it swooped down to catch a mouse because I thought I heard a squeak as I left it behind.

Somewhere a hawk is dreaming about how it escorted an Escort.

Note: The Picture is borrowed from Chattanooga Nature Center.

Dream: Mother Rat

I start walking downstairs. These are not the stairs of my current house. They're the stairs of my mother's house, the house I grew up in. But I'm in the present, a homeowner, married, with a daughter, dog and cat.

I notice a few mice at the bottom of the stairs. The dog is there, too. He's halfway in his kennel. I call out for the cat. He would be delighted to find the mice and chase them.

The mice are larger than the mice I'm used to seeing. Then it occurs to me that they're not mice at all. They're rats.

Now I'm glad that the cat didn't come when I called.

I decide to call for my wife, but I don't tell her why. "Come downstairs, and wear your shoes."

She doesn't come either. (It's just like in real life -- no one listens to me.)
I now see that the dog is in trouble. He's stuck in the door of his kennel, and the mice, er, rats, may be be tormenting him.

And then I see that those rats were just baby rats. The mother is here, and she's bigger than the cat. Whoa.

I'm not scared, but I'm annoyed that this is yet another home expense.

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This dream occurred more than 12 hours ago. I've thought about it throughout the day. After I started to tell my wife, she asked if my mother (who died about ten months ago) came into my dream.

I wonder now. The stairway was the same as in the house I grew up in, my mother's house. There were three baby rats. Well, there were three of us growing up in that house, my brother, my sister and me. Then there's the mother rat, who could be mom, and the dog, who could be dad. He was patient and laid back like the dog and somehow tolerated the three of us and mom.

Usually when a dead loved one shows up in a dream, they don't show up as rodents. At least dad never did.