Do we take our own advice? Listen to that inner you.

I was talking to a friend of mine on Facebook last night and she brought up a very interesting point (thank you Sandy!!), there are a lot of us out here who have the ability to give some of the best advice around, good and sound; however, do we take the advice that we give?  I found this question rather interesting and it got me to thinking about it.

I’m the type of person that doesn’t readily give advice to people because they don’t ask for it and I’m not one to share my opinion.  I know this may come as a shock to a lot of you because I am writing a blog full of it and no one is asking me for it, but in all actuality, these are just my thoughts that I’ve decided to share with you.  No one is making you read it (although I am asking you to) and no one is making you take the lessons I learned and apply them to your lives (that I leave up to you), but you when the smoke clears, it’s all really a matter of opinion.  As I said before, I give voice to the things that people are too afraid to say but we are all thinking. 

That being said, I’ve always noticed that I have the type of face that people seem to want to tell their life stories.  I’m a wonderful listener but I also couple that with keeping my opinions to myself unless I am specifically asked.  I do that because I don’t ever want someone to be able to say “well Double E said….”  This is also why I don’t gossip either.  Too many things can happen behind that.

As I sat and thought about what Sandy and I spoke about I came to realize and I think she would agree with me, that sometimes we are too close to situations that prevent us from seeing what is always glaringly obvious to someone who isn’t in the midst of it.  It’s like we get involved in a situation and there are two voices sounding off.  One is your heart and the other one is your head.  Like the “devil and angel” on your shoulders; one telling you what you want to hear and the other one telling you what you need to hear.  Which one do you listen to because you know they are surely at odds, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart? If you’re like me you sometimes wish those two would get their shit together and get on the same page, just once, but it never happens. 

Oddly enough, I had a similar conversation with my DEH back when I first opened up the lines of civil communication with him.  At first, we argued about the demise of our relationship until I finally told him that since he insisted that he was talking and I insisted that I was talking, let’s agree that we both were talking and neither of us were listening.  That seemed like a fair assessment to me because it has been known to happen to the best of us. Everyone was talking and no one listening. As the saying goes, we can all sing together but we can’t all talk at the same time. That seemed to appease him, which is quite rare for him because he still wanted to argue his point and I have had to figure out a way to shut that down because the time for arguing is over.

In our situation we were too close to it to listen to each other so it would stand to reason that if you are too close to a situation any advice that you may give to another you won’t be taking it yourself because in the end, you are going to do what you want anyway and no amount of advice you give to yourself is going to sound reasonable. 

Or will it? 

We are all intelligent creatures and we know right from wrong (well most of us anyway) and we also know when something or someone isn’t good for us.  At least, on the surface we hope we do and we also hope that we do take our own advice when situations arise that we may need it.  That little voice inside your head that tells you everything you need to hear (the angel voice) often gets drowned out by everything else (the devil voice) and we end up in situations where we know “in another life” we would have run away from. 

I can honestly say that the little voice that I had always listened to before I met DEH had always been on point but then I stopped listening to it.  That was the beginning of my lesson, because that’s when I met DEH.  I refused to listen to that “nagging” voice I heard and I laid it to rest only to be unhappy for a very long time.  It was that same voice that told me something wasn’t right, that kept me up at night and it was that same voice that, when it did finally let me go to sleep, it would invade my dreams and wake me up with tears streaming down my face. 

It was that same voice that when I received that phone call on February 15, 2009 at 7:58 p.m. (yes this is the exact date and time), took a deep breath and let out a silent scream that lasted a full sixty seconds.  As that voice echoed through my soul, I sat very still and I listened.  Every frustration, every doubt, every hurt, all the pain, all the tears, everything became very clear to me; and I continued to listen.   Once I heard everything that voice had been telling me all those years, I swore I would always listen to it no matter how painful it was because it has yet to lead me wrong. Two days later, that same voice gave me “permission” to cry one last time and I did.  I cried myself to sleep and for the first time in five years, I slept an entire night, I didn’t dream and I didn’t wake up crying.  I woke up and felt very peaceful. I was at peace and my soul was at peace.  It’s that same peace that allowed me to actually forgive DEH for everything.  It’s that same peace that kept me from saying all the mean and nasty things to him that he said to me and allowed everything I needed to say to him be communicated as I walked away from him yelling at my back with a sway in my hips and my head held high. 

I’m still listening to that voice.  It’s not screaming any more, thank goodness!  That voice made me stop dead in my tracks when I was seeing this guy who had no ambition, talked a good game and was only looking for someone to take care of him.  It’s that same voice that gave me back my confidence to know I am a beautiful woman and a beautiful person and that I do have a voice and that my voice is my gift.  That same voice has also made me walk away from a few situations where I know I was headed down a path that would end in my being hurt, so I got out before I got in too deeply.

So yes Sandy, I do take my own advice.  Sure, sometimes I look for “confirmation” from my friends but I already know what the real deal is and what I should be doing anyway and that’s what I’m going to do regardless.  I promised myself that I wouldn’t go through anything like what I did with DEH and I also promised myself that no matter what my “stupid” heart said, I was going to listen to that voice.  Anyone that knows me knows I don’t make promises that I don’t intend to keep. 

 

Double E