Noticing Your Surroundings

I'm back with a simple story about paying attention to moments in your surroundings that make you feel inside. Is your intuition coming alive with gratitude, or is the irritation of what you're witnessing creating a moment to recognize that more mindfulness work needs attention? You have a choice.

Transcript

Well,

Greetings.

It's nice to be back.

There we go.

Oh my gosh,

I haven't recorded in a while,

And I could just cut this out,

But there's so many bloopers that happen on the back end of podcasts,

And sometimes I just sit here and laugh at myself.

And so I thought,

Why not,

Right?

That's kind of part of connecting.

Oh,

Of course.

And my speaker goes off.

Can you hear that in the background?

Gracious.

Anyway.

Welcome.

My name is Allison.

I'm back recording.

It's been a minute,

Or several months,

Really,

I should say.

And there's been so many things that have been happening lately,

And I just,

It's one of these things in life where life gets so overwhelming,

And you want to share so many things.

It's like that ambulance that just went by.

Did you hear that in the background?

I can't,

I can't,

I can't make that up.

But life just,

There's so many things that are happening,

And I want to share all of them,

But it's,

I'm just not taking the time to do it.

Why?

I don't know.

Who knows,

Right?

So many excuses I could come up with.

But I'm here today,

And I'm in the office on a Sunday afternoon.

It's quiet.

I'm able to turn the blower off overhead.

I have this amazing office,

And I get to look out on treetops and the blue sky.

I get to see when the clouds and the storms are rolling in.

But a lot of times,

I don't record during the week because of the blower overhead.

So it's an excuse that I use,

And I have the weekends I can come,

But who wants to work on the weekend?

But I really enjoy doing this.

So here I am to share with you.

And so thank you.

Thank you for this crazy introduction and welcoming me back.

So thank you so much for being here and for listening.

You know,

I have this phrase that I use with my clients.

I use it when I'm on Insight Timer each week,

Doing intuitive readings.

Anytime I'm meeting with someone and we're having an encounter,

A connection,

Is when we come together.

It's not for me,

Right?

I have my own source that I'm receiving from,

The energy that I'm receiving.

But when we come together,

You're really coming to listen when you listen to anyone's podcast,

Right?

When you're on here,

Whether you're listening to comedy,

Trivia,

Whoever,

Right?

Any other psychics or mediums,

You're not coming for them.

You're really coming for yourself.

You're tuning in for yourself.

And that is a beautiful gift that I don't think we recognize that we give ourselves.

And there's many,

Many moments that we have where we are tuning in and we don't realize it.

And there's gifts that are being presented to us in different ways.

And I wanted to share a few examples of what that looks like and how I recognize those little intuitive hits,

Those intuitive gifts in my life.

And one just happened recently,

Actually yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon,

I went to Trader Joe's here in Little Rock and I went through,

Did all my shopping.

I love Trader Joe's for so many reasons,

But I'm standing in line and I love to observe people.

I'm a people watcher.

I really enjoy it.

And there was this young man in front of me.

I say young,

He's probably in his thirties.

And he was holding his daughter.

And she was,

You could tell she was just about one years old and about ready to fall asleep on his chest.

I mean,

It was just so sweet to observe this and to have this moment just to watch.

Because of course,

When I see other little kids,

I think back to when my kids were small.

And that moment where you're trying to get the grocery shopping done,

But your child's tired and she was so sweet and just snuggled into his chest.

And then next thing I know,

I'm assuming his partner,

His wife walks up and she has one of those baby carriers that's attached to you.

You wear it kind of like a backpack,

But you put the baby in it.

And this little teeny tiny baby,

I mean,

Newborn was on her and she was snuggling this baby and they were finishing their grocery shopping.

And I just took a deep breath,

Not just for myself,

But also for them to see them and recognize,

Wow,

I see you and I can feel how tired you are.

You're out doing your grocery shopping with your two little babies,

But you're also working together as a partnership,

Going grocery shopping.

And I thought back to myself and my husband and when we would be out,

Because our boys are 12 months and two weeks apart.

And it looked very similar to this couple that I was watching.

And I had this pinging moment in my mind thinking,

Gosh,

Here I am,

Our boys are 12 and 13.

And I survived that time.

I survived that exhaustion.

I survived the tantrums.

I survived the potty training.

I survived so many things.

And my husband and I,

At that time,

It was hard.

It was hard work.

It was such hard work.

And there's so many moments that you're outside of your body and you just become a robot when you're parenting.

That's what I called it.

I called it robot mode.

At one point,

I even made robot costumes out of diaper boxes for my kids when they were toddlers to walk around the house.

Why that memory just came into my mind,

I don't know.

But these are the moments where here I am watching this young family,

And I had these pings back to when I went through that with my kids.

And after I got my groceries,

And after I paid for them,

And I got to my car,

I really went in and just sat for a minute and thought,

Wow,

You know,

There's so many moments like that where we see somebody going through something similar of us,

Right?

We want to offer advice.

We want to share what we did and what worked for us.

And I didn't do that.

I didn't know them.

We weren't close enough to have a conversation.

But instead,

I sat in my car for a minute.

And even as I was watching them in line,

And I was thinking to myself,

Wow,

There's so much that I have accomplished,

Not only as a mom,

Not only as a wife,

But as me,

As me just observing as me as doing my very best each day,

Me as making sure I am standing tall in my mindfulness practice so that I can be my best self,

How I can return to my mindfulness practice when life gets hairy,

And I'm being pulled in many directions that I choose to go,

Right?

We are,

We choose to go in the many directions that we are pulled.

So how much of our time are we spending paying attention of other people's stories that we're perhaps observing and noticing how that sits within us?

Does it bring up something that is frustrating and irritating?

Or does it bring up a lesson that we're grateful and we can show gratitude,

Not gratitude just for today,

But also sharing gratitude with the past and all that we have accomplished until this point.

It's pretty amazing what can happen if you take a moment and you look around and you see something happening and you can have a moment of sharing a positive,

Energetic moment connection with someone,

Even just observing that moment and seeing how it feels within.

That is what being connected with your intuition is all about.

It's listening to the feelings within,

It's listening to how it feels with not just within your body,

But how it feels within your mind and what is flushing up.

I had a beautiful gratitude connection with that about five,

Six years ago,

Seven years ago,

I might've had a very different reaction.

I might've been more exhausted,

I might've been more irritated and that if the irritation,

The exhaustion,

The depletion,

All of those things come up,

That means there's more work to be done within to find more clarity,

To notice and recognize and acknowledge facts and truth that are happening within you and to quiet the illusions of all the shoulds and should ofs and shouldn'ts in life.

So just for today,

Take a moment,

Wherever you are,

Perhaps you're still hanging out at the pool and you're noticing a family,

Perhaps you're at the grocery store like me.

Wherever you are,

See what you see around you and see how it feels within you.

Notice is it a sense of gratitude for how far you've come and then pushing out positive energy towards that family or those people near you?

Or are you irritated and depleted and frustrated?

If you are,

That is where the work begins to shift today into a greater tomorrow.

Thanks for joining me.

I'll be back for more.

Take care.

Bye bye.