The Olympic Committee

This weekend I heard a great deal about how other people interact with their mind. Quite different than the brain when I say that, I'm talking about The Voices Inside Your Head. And not in a 'needs medication' kind of way.

Well, maybe that way.

On girl I met this weekend has basically one voice in her head and sometimes says her mind is completely blank. I was stunned. One?! Who has *one* voice in their head?

I had a boyfriend once say to me, "Arguing with you isn't fair. I'm only one guy and you have, like, a dozen women in there all thinking of the next thing they'll say."

It was kind of a revelation for me. But it stuck! I'd found a metaphor for the chaos of my mind. I started to picture them and, over time, I decided on a cheap basement room kind of like for an AA meeting or something. Seventies linoleum, plastic chairs that kind of match the floor but not each other, bad cookies and coffee (sinners!) in the back corner to keep them fueled--that kind of thing. What's their job, you ask? Well, basically it's to let me know instantly about what I've just done. If I say something that they think may be silly, they tell me so. But not in a unified voice. I have some allies in there. So it goes something like this:

"God lord that was dumb! I can't believe you said that!"
"Hey! Be nice to her. It wasn't totally dumb. But it was probably irresponsible."
"Is this really positive self talk? Come now, it was fine. No one noticed."
"Seriously!? What are we, all new age up in here? Self talk? Who let that one in?"

And on and on and on. Sometimes they're quiet. But I'm asleep.

So, anyway, this weekend with the help of Phyllis (one of our awesome hosts) I was able to suss out more of some of their roles. There's a Risk Manager in there. She knits and doesn't say much. She's tired of being ignored. And so on. Lots of little different roles and voices that I see for myself. One of the points of this weekend was to learn how to integrate all the roles and desires so that they don't act out and start behaving badly. You can see why I needed this retreat.

As I'm working through all this, trying to dismiss some that were unnecessary and find positive roles for who remained the girls present got to know me some. And on Saturday morning, and I don't remember who exactly said it, I was dissecting a thought and someone piped in, "You don't just have women up there, you have a whole Olympic Committee!"

I laughed and laughed but I think it's one of the more profound things I took away from the weekend.

What does this have to do with today? Well, today started off with a broken car needing a tow to the garage. I didn't take time to put on anything matching or do my hair when I went to swap the working car out for that one with Mike. Then I had to dogs with me so they got hair on the car of the nice woman who gave me a ride home from the shop. Then I was behind schedule for my cleaning and my shopping and then, and then and then.

The Ukraine is in with a 2.0.

Instead of letting the O.C. win the day, I'm blogging out my anxiety. I'm owning that it happened but that it's not going to win today. I have a couple more hours and I'm going to rock out the progress. Basically, I'm saying "To hell with the Ukraine."