TAMING NEGATIVE NELLY

As many of you know, I am walking dogs these days. I have many regular clients and I love all my borrowed fur babies. Sometimes, Scott will walk with me on his days off from work. Last weekend, we were walking Turbo, a Whoodle (Wheaten Terrier and Poodle mix) that lives in Concord. We decided to take him to the park, one of his favorite places to go, and make a few trips around the perimeter. There is always a lot of activity at this park and Turbo loves it. He likes all the kids playing soccer, he likes seeing other dogs but he especially likes all the squirrels that call this particular park their home. As we were rounding the bend close to the parking lot, an ice cream truck drove in. I suggested that we get a couple of popsicles to complete our outing. As we continued walking, eating our treats, I marveled at what an awesome life I was living. Here I was, walking in a beautiful and safe park with a dog (and getting paid to do it), getting exercise, spending time with my husband, enjoying the magnificent fall weather we are experiencing in Northern Cal and on top of all that wonderfulness, I was eating a fudgesicle! Seriously, does life get any better?

Then …

Well, then Negative Nelly showed up.

We took Turbo home and I got him settled. Scott and I decided to stop at the grocery store before heading home. We needed just a few fresh produce items and the store was on the way. As we pulled into the parking lot, my husband was reminded about a restaurant he wanted to try. It was in the same parking lot as the grocery store so he decided we needed to go there to try it out. My mind went into overdrive in 3 seconds flat --- What? I don’t want to go into a restaurant. My feet are hot and tired, my hair is a mess, I have no make-up on, I smell like a dog, I have on ugly dog-walking clothes, I’m hot and I just wanna go home.

Wowza! How is it that I was just on Cloud 9, marveling how wonderful the day was, how awesome my life was, how delicious the fudgesicle was … And then all of a sudden find twelve things to complain about. I felt like my head was going to explode. I am in my head, beating myself up, but I’m sure you could see it on my face. And then, I looked over at my happy husband and he was so excited to be walking toward this new restaurant he’d heard such great reviews about. He was so happy to be spending the day with me, enjoying the weather, walking, talking and now eating! He didn’t care one bit about my hair, my shoes or my clothes.

I realized in that moment, probably for the umpteenth time, that those external things really take a back seat to the important things in life. I’m pretty sure no one else considered that my hair was not perfect and that I wasn’t wearing lip stick.

We walked into the restaurant and were greeted by the owner, so happy to see some new faces, eager to try his food. He gave us great service and prepared great food for us and we had an overall lovely time.

I am ashamed that I still get visited by Negative Nelly on a regular basis. I know she shows up because I allow her to. I am happy to say however, that on this particular occasion I only allowed her to hang around in my head for a minute or two. Then I kicked her out and went about enjoying the beauty before me.

Does Negative Nelly visit you? How long do you allow her to taunt you? Are you able to recognize she is not helping you be your best YOU?