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?
