Don't Judge You.

Today, I made a cold call to try and identify a site for my study.

I'm always nervous about those things. You know, phone calls.
I get all worried about how I'm going to sound and if I'm going to get my words out right. I anticipate a whole lot of rambling and incoherence. Today, was no different.

I set a time for myself to make the call happen: 1:30PM...Then I fell asleep and woke up at about 1:45. So new call time: 2:12PM.

I dialed the number and secretly hoped for an answering machine--one where I could listen to what I've done and erase and re-record it a million times until it sounded right--but, when I got an actual human on the phone, the actual person I needed to speak with, I went into immediate panic mode.

"Hi."

Once I got going, I could tell I was trying to pack a lot in so that the listener could get the reason for my call all in the first few minutes. I grew anxious about whether my pace made me sound like a babbler and jeopardized my opportunity for getting a great setting for my study. I kept taking these weird pauses and inserting awkward questions…smh. In my mind, this was going really badly.

In the end, the guy on the other end indicated that it wasn't a great time for him to talk--death to ego, dagger to the heart. But, just as I'm going off in my head about how I ruined the call, he proceeded to indicate that he would instead set aside time to speak with me about it on Thursday. WHEW!

I immediately noticed how much I actualized all of my fears and negative self-talk. I created all this confusion and anxiety in my mind and then just acted it out. Afterwards, I proceeded to dissect and scrutinize everything I'd done.

I know I have this habit of being overly critical of self and others. And today, as part of this doc process, I get another reminder of how much this pattern doesn't serve me.

So, right now, I release self-doubt and judgment. I acknowledge my humanity and the fact that I took a leap and actually did not get a "no". I now have time to prepare for my next discussion and in the meantime pray for a calm disposition, the right words, and for the Creator to lay out the steps to making this or something better work out.

. . .

I look forward to telling you about the day that I secured a research setting for my study.

#Comingsoon