Good Morning Sunshine! Get a cup of something nice and settle in….
I set a reading goal at the beginning of the year to read 50 books. I count audio books as well as physical books and have learned something very important about myself. I am part of a book club and last year I confessed that I did not like audio books (I may have been a tad more dramatic in my language, but that is the beauty of retelling your own stories, you can tone down what may have been a bit histrionic). My good friend grabbed my phone and downloaded the app I needed to listen on my phone and insisted I try again. I did. I HATED it!
When I meditate, I see nothing in my mind, it is blank and dark. But, when I read, I know what the characters look like, I see their surroundings and hear their voices and it stays with me. This didn’t happen when I listened. I would have no idea what the characters looked like and sometimes I wouldn’t be able to follow along because that immersion into another time/place/reality wasn’t happening. Furthermore, I would wonder if I didn’t like a book if it was really because I didn’t like the way the narrator told the story and if I would have liked it more if I had read it, but now I don’t want to read it to find out, because I didn’t like it, but did I really? My mind is a beautiful but totally jacked up place to be sometimes.
At the same time I was struggling with fiction audio books I was also struggling to read a book on habits that was HIGHLY recommended by a friend and an autobiography that Zonkie loved and wanted me to read but three times started and dnf (this means “did not finish”….I learned that through my book club and in case you don’t run in book club circles I don’t want you to feel left out! Oh, and I hope you read this and decide you need to be in a book club too…. but you can’t be in mine there is only one rule “no one in, no one out”. Sounds intense, but it works). ANYWAY…. Both of these books were really good, and I had that feeling that I was missing out on something because reading them just wasn’t doing it for me, and at the same time I was listening to a book where the narrator had a lilt to their voice, so their statements ended like questions and it was making my brain hurt and I finally decided that was it!
Just when I was about to give up and delete the app off my phone, I had a moment of curiosity…. What if I LISTENED to the habits book? I did. It was AWESOME! My family might dispute this because I love to share interesting things I have learned and so for a while I was all about sharing tips with everyone on ways to create/break/think about their habits. Then I got more curious…. what if I LISTENED to the autobiography? FANTASTIC…the story came to life, and I especially like them when they are read by the person themselves, but even read by someone else, I find them magical. AH-HA…. I like to READ fiction and LISTEN to non-fiction! BRILLIANT!
What does this have to do with what if? Well, I just finished listening to Elton John’s autobiography, Me (I am even more in love with him than I was before!). At the end he reflects on his life with “what ifs?” and then asks, “what next?”, which is beautiful, but I think this is what happens to “What if?” a lot. It is used it to look backward. It is used to question our past self/choices/thoughts/actions, good and bad. I’m curious… What if you used it to look forward? What if it was allowed to be the catalyst to your curiosity? “What if” allows you to wonder, to imagine, to inspire. Through the wondering and imagining we can begin to see ourselves and our lives in ways that are kinder, more loving, more colorful and fun. “What if” opens us up to new opportunities to trying something on that we may have said before “Oh that’s just not me.”, a phrase that I think we use to keep us in our comfortable cocoon, long after we have outgrown it and is sometimes used to keep those around us comfortable, often to the detriment of our own wellbeing and growth (that is another whole post so stay tuned!).
This has all been my way of asking you…. Where in your day can you ask, “What if?” and allow yourself the gift of trying something on that might be disparate to the things you have told yourself about who you are? What if it is awful? What if it is amazing? What if YOU are just waiting inside to break out and this is finally the opportunity? What are your what ifs? AND…. What are you reading or listening to? XO Lulu