After spinning this beauty around the dance floor for a short while, Jack says: You know what? I'm hungry. Let's grab a bite.
Jack, with a winning smile: Yes you do. And you like me. I can tell. Come on. I mean, what'd ya come for tonight if not to meet—me!
Jennie, laughing—reconsidering: You're unbelievable!
Warm, charming, genuine: I sure am! So, whadya say?
Jennie's intuition kicks in.
He's right. She came to meet a guy.
And so far, she likes everything she sees …
Of course, meeting a guy and leaving with a stranger are not the same thing …
Caution speaks: I'd like you to meet my cousins.
Millie, Rozie, Ivy and Betty, this is Jack G
Jack G, I'd like you to meet Millie, Rozie, Ivy and Betty
Minutes later, Jack whisks Jennie into the passenger seat of his car and off they go.
Pulling into the parking lot of a burger joint, Jack glances at the woman sitting next to him and feeling as though he's struck gold, the happy young man turns off the ignition, jumps out, runs around the car and opens Jennie's door.
Jennie doesn't budge. The serious expression on her face speaks to Jack.
What's wrong? Com'on. Big smile.
Jennie doesn't budge. The serious expression on her face speaks to Jack.
Smile transitions to confusion: What's up? Don't you want to eat?
Jennie nods.
Jack remains confused until he thinks to ask: You want to eat but not here?
Jennie nods.
Then where?
This wins Jennie's smile, and she speaks: Just drive.
Scratching his head, Jack walks around the car, puts the pedal to the metal and drives until Jennie points and says: How about there?
Jack parks in front of a nice restaurant.
Not an expensive restaurant but nice, none the less.
Jennie's no snob.
She's also no dummy …
Think several posts back …
Remember when I mentioned that being nice, quiet and observant doesn't equate with meek … :)
April 23,2014
We adopt, aquire, absorb attitudes about ourselves and others, first, from those in authority, early on. Then later, if we focus more consciously, attitudes, swallowed whole, early on, may have sound reason to alter, intuitively.
Attitudes are habits that shape our thinking patterns in this way:
Attitudes arouse emotions of 'right or wrong'
Feeling something is right, lightens our thoughts, offering inner peace
Feeling something is wrong, darkens our thoughts, stimulating anxiety
Feeling something is right or wrong influences thought patterns
Thought patterns, programmed to influence behavior
Feeling something is right may be intuitive (natural) or learned (programmed). Discerning one from the other is vital to personal growth
Feeling something is wrong catalyzes anxiety (fear)
Fear stimulates the defense system's 'fight, flee or freeze' reaction
Feeling something is wrong does not mean it is wrong
Feeling something is right (natural) and wrong (unacceptable)
Opens the mind's door to confusion, which stimulates anxiety and curiosity (an instinctive need to know more)
Curiosity can lead to an intuitive chain reaction so complex that
We can not fully visualize the bigger picture
Which, with cautious experimentation, will clarify, over time
Though curiosity killed the cat—I'm not a cat
I'm a person whose sense of caution matches
Her propensity to learn through curious experimentation, step by step
The only mind sets I can re-pattern (reorganize, restructure) are my own. Before I can reorganize a mindset in hopes of embracing change for the better, I must consciously identify attitudes (rules of conduct), which run interference with personal growth. This coming from a person who spent most of her adult life ensuring that she didn't rock any boats is quite a change, indeed.
Each time I have reason to reconsider an attitude, swallowed whole, during childhood, files, storing emotional reactions fly open (the body forgets nothing).
If more than one file flies open, causing opposing emotions to clash, my think tank, feeling too overwhelmed to consider the bigger picture with a wide angled lens, may flood with static. Static breeds confusion, which left unresolved, catalyzes more anxiety than curiosity, which stimulates a flood of cortisol that heightens my survival instinct to fight, flee or freeze, thus overpowering my think tank, which, under those circumstances, is programmed to shut down ... unless my Line of Control has been patterned to run interference, tackle anxiety, allowing logic to run with the ball.
Do you ever wonder at my mind, seemingly, moving effortlessly (?) from one file to another while posting? I mean, how did I go from patterned brain responses to sports???
Stream of consciousness may be likened to the way we spend a twenty-four hour day. Let's look at one day, this week: Awaken. Reach for iPad. Edit post from previous day. Morning routine. Computer time. Story telling. Errands. Philosophizing with myself :) Dinner with friends. Fall asleep while watching T.V. With Will. Bedtime routine. Reach for iPad. Subconscious restlessness. Sleeplessness. Repressed anger emerging. Conscious anger transitioning to vulnerability. (Childhood rule: Anger at loved ones is unacceptable in thought or action. Agreeing with family equates with love—I know, I know. Loved ones needs come first—always???) Vulnerability stimulates anxiety 'fight,freeze,flee'. Insight into several files flying open. Insight into which files are in need of adjustment. With clarity, anxiety lessens. Falling back to sleep. Awakening. Story telling. Vulnerability still acting up. Why? Change for the better takes patience, time and effort. Why? Attitudes are habits. Habits are hard to change for the better … Who said self-discovery is easy? Not me, that's for sure!
When several files fly open at once, multi-faceted compartmentalization gets messed up. Sometimes that's apparent in my writing. Though I may believe a post is ready to publish, upon rereading, I find certain thoughts too complex or incomplete.
Often times, I'm knee deep in another task or activity when an insight or thought comes to mind, so I stop what I'm doing in favor of attending to what I'm thinking, and when my brain whisks me back and forth across the time line, intuition is opening a door in my wall where two separate files correlate. Then, if a third file opens, a pattern, of which I'd been unaware, may emerge clear as day. When that's the case, here's what happens, next:
Once I recognize a pattern to which I'd been blind, confusion clears, and my connection to emotional intelligence is naturally enhanced in this way: Bigger pictures allow me to identify self defeating patterns, suggesting that by way of self discovery, I come to know myself more deeply than before—and Socrates smiles.
Upon becoming less of a stranger to myself, my strengths, one of which is humility, consciously accept responsibility for my vulnerabilities. Upon consciously accepting my vulnerabilities, I can work to create change for the better within me, and once again, my emotional intelligence is enhanced.
BTW. Yesterday, I'd inadvertently left one detail, concerning empathy and anger incomplete. How my thought processor made that mistake, I have no clue. (See why re-examining our own thoughts is vital to clarity?) Actually, this discovery exemplifies reconsideration, leading toward re-evaluation, culminating in restructuring my mind. You'll find the revised text near the end of yesterday's post, written in italics.
Gosh—I sure do hope that my thoughts, imprinted into today's post, are not in need of readjustment after I push publish …
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