The last few days have been very busy. Let me count the ways:
- I taught a Music Appreciation class for ballet students (a first for me)
- I played a piano show for a lovely group of elderly people
- I performed an original poem for a comedy poetry slam (also a first)
- I’m getting ready for a picnic I’m holding for my piano students today
- I helped my wife move out of her photography studio
- I did the usual teaching, reading, running, blogging, eating, sleeping…
Speaking of sleeping, Thursday night I was so keyed up, that I only slept for three hours. This doesn’t happen. Yet I had so much on my mind, I awoke at 3am and stayed up.
The funny thing is how my mind alternately helped and hindered me along the way. On Tuesday I found myself feeling quite distracted and checked out. My head was going a bit nuts. The combination of events, plus the uncertainty of stepping into the unknown, activated some negative programs in my head that were quite uncomfortable: self-judgment, catastrophizing, lots of negative thinking. I tried to be as present as possible. I told myself that this thinking wasn’t the truth.
Wednesday came and I was back on the saddle. My mind was clear, I had a great day.
Then comes Thursday, and once again my mind is swimming in solid gold you-know-what. I watched my own head, I meditated, this helped me to gain perspective, yet for many hours, I couldn’t shake the negativity. It was only when I took a midday nap that I re-set, and awoke my usual happy self.
Yesterday (Friday) arrived, and I was a man on a mission: I awoke, as I said, way too early, but I wasted no time, did my thing. Helped straighten the house, do the laundry, and then did three gigs, which are on the list above.
My mind had made up a lot of stressful things throughout the week, so I was generally experiencing a lot of resistance about all the things I had going on. But once I actually got into the swing of things yesterday, handling my gigs, I had a lot of fun!
It just goes to show, you just can’t trust your own brain, especially when it is telling you to be stressed out, getting you all wrapped up in resistant thoughts.