It is 1.05am…I can’t sleep… my youngest daughter would tell me that by choosing to come downstairs and sit at my computer – writing a blog post – that I am making things worse. She tells me that there are blue lightwaves coming out of my computer that will upset my brain and disrupt my body’s readiness for sleep.

So I have just followed a link she sent me and installed f.lux software to make my computer screen go pinky at night…

And … I am trying to decide whether it is my mind or my body that won’t let me sleep… I am embarrassed to admit this – but I am really excited about the clothes that I have bought over the last three days – and tomorrow we get to play! We are doing a “fashion show” of our purchases for my mother – and I get to dress up and put different cardigans with different tops, mixing and matching coloured vests, T shirts, and lacey tops… I can feel my heart racing with anticipation…

I have never shopped for three consecutive days before… I was doing well … and then I went into a bookshop and immediately had this sense of shame … it was as if all the books on the shelves were judging me … as if all the people in the bookshop – in their shabby, understated clothes –  knew my appalling secret … I felt exposed as the shallow, self-indulgent fibbertigibbet that I am…    And yet all I had actually done was join my lovely daughter as she spent her hard earnt, saved up cash and replenished her rather beleaguered wardrobe…

My shame comes from my thinking,   my thinking about whether my wardrobe is similarly beleaguered,   and whether my money is hard earnt and saved…

So saved? – no…

Hard earnt? – I love my work and seem to have a lot of days off…

Wardrobe beleaguered? – not really…

But then when I started my personal blog I set out to live a life “with ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’ banished” – so how am I doing?  Pretty rubbish really – I may have spent three days shopping – having the best time hanging out with my lovely daughter – but my mind!  My thinking!  – full of self judgement … and currently I have another voice in my head telling me that my blog posts are getting more and more feeble and pedestrian …

So……………………………………….. I think the only way forward is to say – if you could turn off the voices in your head, stop the non-stop commentary of your thinking – if your mind was still, had no opinion, no chatter…

…what does you going shopping for three days actually mean?

Bank balance lower?  Yes.

So much lower that it causes any hardship? No.

Have you bought clothes that you like? Yes.

Have you bought clothes that you will wear? Yes.

Have you bought clothes that will give you pleasure? Yes.

Have you had three days of quality mother and daughter time? Yes.

Is there anything more important to you than spending time with people you love? No.

Are you writing this blog because writing it gives you pleasure? Yes.

Do you write it for yourself or to attempt to impress others?  Have you read my blog…..!!!???

So … blog writing and shopping – dropping all “oughts” and “shoulds” – are you having the best time?   HELL YES!!  🙂