Mar 12, 20232 min read

“The Joy Of Lost Glasses Found”

Women of a certain age might recognise this scenario.

Three weeks ago I lost my new, pretty expensive varifocal glasses.

Having finally managed to be able to wear them without feeling I was at sea or tripping over every 5 minutes, I was more than a bit miffed.

But more than this, the lost glasses represented yet another thing I had forgotten, misplaced or broken.

Why was I so bloody useless? It’s getting to the point where I just can’t be trusted with anything……

It’s becoming embarrassing - even if my family pass off these episodes light-heartedly as yet another one of my ‘menopausal moments’.

What if I forget, lose, break or somehow manage to totally bugger up something that really does matter.

What if?

I’m bloody useless.

And at this point , I’m aware.

I notice the way I’m talking to myself.

Aware of these unhelpful patterns of thinking and thoughts.

I’m aware that these thoughts are not serving me well.

I think I’m just more self-aware in general nowadays.

Much better at noticing when my mind is about to fall into a rabbit hole of churned up, repetitive self-criticism.

I am much better at noticing and disassociating myself from these types of thought patterns that have no base in reality.

I have built a barrier of self-compassion.

When I first started my Mindfulness journey, I had no idea that getting to know my mind was on the agenda.

I just thought I might be able to find some calm and stillness in my life.

But it has been so much more than that.

When we practice Mindfulness we get to notice what’s going on in the mind as we pull ourselves out of ‘auto-pilot’

Sometimes we can choose to just let thoughts come and go with the aim of not getting tangled up in them (which we invariably do - and at the point we notice, we can use our breath as an an anchor into the present moment)

Sometimes if we notice we are finding it difficult to let go of thoughts, we can choose to pay focused attention - step to one side of our thoughts and look at them objectively from the ‘outside’

We can apply some self-kindness and give ourselves permission to let go.

And if we can’t let it go, we can let ourselves know that this is okay too.

So to ‘reframe’ my thinking about the lost glasses situation my thinking shifted to

‘Oh well, they’ll turn up. It’s really not the end of the world. Have a cup of tea’