Recently, I’ve been watching people put up posts on Facebook with the title:

Seven days. B&W picture challenge. No People. No explanation. Day # (whatever)

As part of the challenge, the person would tag another person who would then have to participate and do it as well.

I held my breath each time I saw this, hoping no one would tag me.

I mean, OMG, I had enough to do! I sure didn’t need one more thing to think about, worry about, have to do every day! I liked looking at the photos people were posting, though, and many of them were very interesting. Anyway, as the days went by and I remained untagged, I started to let out my breath a little.

And then it happened.

Someone tagged me! I thought, of course, it’s not mandatory! I don’t HAVE to do it! But somehow I didn’t decline. I decided to just start and see what happened.

What happened was this: I discovered that I was enjoying it. I was looking forward to it. Even though my dance card was so full it felt like a straight-jacket some days, this did not.
So, thank you to the brave person who tagged me to do this challenge!

It turned out to be a gift.

Because “When you change the things you look at, the things you look at change.”–Wayne Dyer

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“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~Wayne Dyer

Last night I was trying to shut off my (monkey) mind long enough to fall asleep when I became aware of a noise that at first I couldn’t place.

What was it? Oh no…drip, drip, drip….It was water. Dripping water, like of the water torture variety. A little more investigation gleaned some annoying information: it was from somewhere outside. You know, so that it couldn’t be shut off. OMG. I could feel my blood pressure inching up as I was freaking out about my coming sure-to-be-sleepless night of listening to the drip-drip-dripping water (icicles melting from the roof) when I suddenly had another thought. This time though, it was a useful thought.

It was Wayne Dyer’s quote (above) that popped into my head. I had heard it earlier that day in an audiobook. There was not a thing on God’s green earth that I could do at 10 o’clock at night to stop the dripping water outside, but hey, maybe I could change how I was thinking about the dripping water?

I gave it a try:

I’m grateful for the roof over my head.
I’m happy to be in my own bed in my own home.
Maybe the dripping is not so bad?
What if I try to meditate? I could say the “So Hum” meditation (the one that I know I can do without thinking too much about it).
What if every time I notice a drip, I (mentally) say the word “So”, then the next drip, I say the word “Hum”, and so on? Which at least gave me something constructive to do and actually might coax my blood pressure back down to an acceptable level?

Well…guess what! It worked! I still heard it, but it didn’t make me anxious or mad anymore. In an odd sort of way, it felt comforting. So here’s a corollary to Wayne’s quote: If you change the way you listen to things, the things you listen to change.

🙂