Saturday 26 April 2014

DSTSS - stranger danger

25.  Smile at strangers, look into their eyes, and say hello

Excuse me if my writing seems messy, cause i am shaking while i write this blog post - with fear of having to talk to strangers....

Okay, here's some things i am good at
1. cooking
2. designing clothes
3. being a great mother, wife and friend
5. throwing great parties
6. having fun
7. drinking
8. my job
9. walking down a runway with hundreds of strangers looking at me when we do a fashion show
10. standing up and talking to a group of people
11. being a decent human begin
12. everything, but talking to strangers one on one

Okay here's some things i am terrible at
1, talking to strangers
2. talking to strangers
3. talking to strangers
4. gardening -  i am really shit at that!

According to chapter 25, my mate dick, says that it's very unusual to find people who are truly happy, but keep their head down and look away from people.  i have to disagree.  I have inner happiness, but yep, i look away from people - those i don't know of course.  If you know me, then you know i will be right in your lovely face yakking up a storm of nonsense and offering you everything i have if you need it.

We get taught at a young age that we shouldn't talk to strangers.  How confusing for me at a young age to have a man come up to me in a park and say he was my father.  It totally freaked me and my sister out. (who doesn't love a messy divorce - but in the bigger picture of life, this was just a moment in time).

I'm not uncomfortable talking about stranger danger, cause i know deep down, we probably all have the "thing" that makes us cringe and this is mine. I actually struck up a conversation with a stranger the other day who told me he had a fear of wild animals.   So it's time to embrace the one thing i fear the most and i wish it was wild animals, cause i really don't come into contact with them on a day to day basis.

When i started on my journey of self discovery many years ago, i decided to do something about this problem and i bought a book - how to talk to anyone.  Surely, this would hold the key to me being able to speak to strangers....i read it, i believed it, i tried it and that book is probably still better at talking to strangers than i am.

I lacked confidence for such a big part of my life that it has only been a fairly recent admission that i do in fact have a great deal to offer not only myself, but also the world.  If we don't believe in our self, then how can others?  So i used the old saying - fake it till you make it and eventually, my world opened up.....to everything but talking to strangers and now i am going to banish this beast once and for all.
What is quite funny is that as i have started to go through stuff getting ready to sell my house, i came across the book packed in a box i hadn't opened for nearly four years and it's just as i am ready to blog about chapter 25.

(could finding this book come right when i needed it to?  was my bizarre sixth sense in play? sometimes, stuff just appears when i need it, and often i have a funny feeling inside and i pay attention.  This funny feeling isn't always wind, but it has led me to or away from something. EG one night, i was at my mums and felt really really sick.  She wanted me to drop a video (yes it was the 90's) back to the store and i told her i wouldn't, i was too sick and had to rush home. surely i could have dropped the video off on the way - but no i went straight home and immediately felt better.  She was so mad at me that she dropped the video back only to find that the store had just been held up.  I would have been there right when it happened - so, i think it pays to listen to my inner voice)

I might flick through the book again, but i don't think it's going to give me the answers i need.  I have had people in the past think i was aloof or up my self, but that is certainly not the case, i am just not good at talking to strangers. It's all up to me and i need to face the fear.

What i did take from chapter 25 of don't sweat the small stuff is there are strangers out there just like me, with families, with jobs, with issues, with similarities, differences, problems, single, married, homeless and i need to start saying hello more.  Being the first to reach out, might just make someone else's day better.

I am always so touched when i go to somewhere like fiji and the people there just say hello - it comes from the heart, but gee it's weird having people just saying hello all the time.  But i am going to give it a try and get my inner bula on.

BULA! wow, that felt good.......

Note to self:  If saying hello is to formal, just say hi (easy, i can do that).   Yep just say it loud, with gusto and a big fucking smile on my face.  If i just start saying hi to everyone, people are either going to start saying hi back or cross the street to avoid me, but either way, i will be embracing my fear. If that doesn't go so well, i can always resort to chat roulette......

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