Meditation or Bust

One of the many changes I’m going through with menopause - or at least I think I can blame it on that - is a tendency to talk to myself.

I wish it was just a heightened awareness of the usual internal chatter within my thoughts. That would be ‘normal’. I know we all do that.

It isn’t the occasional verbalisation to help my brain process something, like reading instructions or a recipe out loud. “I’ll just add some seasoning and then I’m done!”.

And it’s not a casual comment while walking past a colleague as I’m leaving the office. “I must remember to grab some milk on the way home…”

If my uttering was that innocent and nondescript I wouldn’t be so concerned. But this is more.

Unfortunately I’m saying things out loud that should simply be kept to myself. And while I think that - in the most part - I haven’t gotten myself into trouble, yesterday I came to the conclusion I need to start meditating (or something) before shit gets real.

Because this is now a common occurrence, and it really is starting to worry me. Where did this tendency come from? Why am I changing? Who am I becoming?

Yesterday, alone and filling my car with fuel, I let out a “F*ck” followed immediately with a louder and more animated “WTF?!” as the bowser I was holding seized and spilt fuel. The reaction may sound justified but let me paint the picture further. It was my words and my words only that caused the commotion - not the spillage - because the spillage was just a trickle down the side of my car, not the gushing explosion my exclamation made it out to be. The incident certainly wasn’t worthy of profanities, loud enough that other customers looked to see if I was ok. I just smiled and nodded. I would have waved but one hand was trying to get the bowser to behave and the other was giving it the bird.

So I’ve decided it’s time to introduce a few minutes of daily meditation. At the very least with a greater sense of calm, my mouth will be slower to follow my mind’s instruction to overreact, or say what I think, or in this case, both.

Meditation, or bust.