This morning I did a very dumb thing and put myself in a lot of danger.

I was on my way to my friend’s house to co-work, when I discovered that I’d left the keys in Larry’s ignition overnight, and his clock had turned off. Not a good sign.

I gave the keys an optimistic turn.

Yep, flat battery. 😏

It’s the second time I’ve gotten a flat battery while up in my rural place in NSW. I become a lot less conscientious while I’m up here, as everyone is so relaxed and no one seems to lock their cars or their houses most of the time, so neither do I.

It seems this time I left the keys in “accessory” mode before leaving them in the car (which I also didn’t mean to do!)

Nev would like to qualify that it was raining and dark and I was carrying in four bags, which is how the keys got left behind.

Luckily I live on a hill, so last time I got a flat battery I eventually worked out that I could just clutch start the car in reverse.

I was subsequently so proud of myself I had to call my Dad, Mum, Step Dad, and brother, (and a few friends) to let them know about my momentous achievement.

But this morning, my newfound clutch-starting skills failed me. Beginners luck? Or possibly because I’d subjected Larry’s battery to 12 hours of unnecessary aircon 😬

I thought I must just be doing the clutch starting wrong, so I kept trying until my car was backing out onto the road. Still no go, and by this stage I was accidentally hanging over the road a bit and realised I’d have to keep going.

Had tried calling my Dad and my brother to see if there was something I was doing wrong with the clutch starting, but couldn’t get hold of them.

I figured I should be able to roll Larry down the road to my neighbours house (about 500m away) and kept trying to clutch start it en route. No deal.

I knew it was probably a dumb idea, but for some reason decided to override this thought and do it anyway. I figured it was a hill, so it should be fine.

I rolled and rolled, then got to a corner and rolled and rolled… and then stopped rolling.

Right on a blind corner of a gravel country road.

Couldn’t even turn the hazard lights on.

And it was bucketing down.

Neville was shouting at me.

“Fuck you’re an idiot! I knew this would happen! Why do you always have to try to do things yourself, you could have called your friend, or roadside assist! You fool! Now someone is going to crash into Larry!”

I jumped out and started pushing with one hand on the wheel, but I couldn’t get him to budge enough to keep rolling.

So, aware that I was stopped in a super dangerous place, I ran down the road, hoping that the neighbours would be home so they could jump start Larry and get him away from the blind corner before any other cars came around it.

It’s a quiet country road with not many cars, but the cars that do come down it, come fast.

As I was running in the rain, I heard a big ute coming behind me and I put my hand out.

They thought I was hitchhiking and yelled – “Jump in on the other side, there’s a baby seat on that side!”

After some confusion and explaining, they turned around and helped me jumpstart my car using a nifty battery charger they had in the boot, thank god, as my battery was so dead I wasn’t sure if my jumper leads would work. (Have never jump-started a car before).

They were super helpful, but at the same time giving me some definite judgey vibes for having stopped in such a dangerous place.

Neville told me they were thinking “stupid blonde girl, so dangerous.”

And they were right, it was 100% dumb.

Once Larry burst back into life, I gave much effusive thanks, Larry did some thankful beeping, and they headed off. But Neville wouldn’t let it go.

I felt all curly inside, a mingle of stress and relief, but also of shame for doing something so dumb AND being judged for it.

As I drove for the next half hour (back and forth past my friends house a couple of times to recharge the battery!), the swirly stomach emotion stuck around.

Nev couldn’t stop thinking about how dumb those people must have thought I was.

“Goddamnit I’m usually so practical. I wonder if they’d have been so judgey if I was a bloke. I’ve let down the female race! I’ve made yet another couple of people think that blonde women are inherently stupid! Noooo.”

Nev can be rather dramatic at times, swooning and cursing at the mildest of mishaps.

Interestingly, learning to be judged/ misunderstood without a right of reply is something I’ve been trying to practise being ok with lately.

Sometimes people will judge and you won’t get the chance to defend yourself.

Sometimes you don’t get to tell people your side of the story.

Sometimes you never even know they’re judging you.

It’s always happening to all of us all the time, but sometimes it’s more obvious (and stressful) than others.

It’s a big process, letting go of the people-pleasing notion that everyone needs to like us.

Learning to be ok with this is the ultimate act of letting go of control.

The more “myself” I become, the less I care that some people will love me and some people very much won’t.

But I still hate it when I feel I’m being judged and there’s nothing I can do about it. Especially when I can’t understand why, or when it feels unfair, or unjustified, or when I can’t defend myself.

In the case with the car, I really have no defence, even if the judgey couple said –

“You’re an idiot, that was mad dumb” I would say “I concur.”

But I can still practise letting go of caring that they (maybe) judged me.

If you ever put anything out there ever, especially on social media, you will be judged and/or misunderstood by a tonne of people, and most of the time you won’t even know.

Many years ago I lost a couple of old (quite distant) friends because they read a blog I wrote about breaking up with friends, thought it was about them (it wasn’t), and they became angry and judgey. I only found out about it from another friend 2 years later because we weren’t in touch often enough for it to become apparent.

Dammit it hurt when I found out! It felt like I’d been convicted of a crime without the chance to prove my innocence! It could have been so easily solved if they’d just talked to me.

But alas.

So I’m practising being ok with being misjudged and misunderstood by people who don’t know me.

So as I drove, I put my attention in the swirly, uncomfortable emotions and let them be there.

I notice Nev ranting on, and instead of jumping in to have an argument with him in my head, I don’t engage.

I notice my unhelpful thoughts. Let them be there. Then return my attention to the sensations I can feel in my stomach. Focussing on physiological sensations anchors our mind in the present, so the mind can’t drag us into the past or the future quiiite so easily.

Nev starts up again. I smile at him. Let him continue his rant, while turning my attention back to the sensations, back to the present moment.

I did this a few times on the drive, and by the time I arrived at my friend’s house, Nev had gotten bored and given up badgering me.

I felt calm again.

“So I’m an idiot…” I announced as I walked through my friend’s front door.

Taming your mind sounds so simple, but yet it only works if you *actually* do it… over and over and over.

Until it becomes second nature to watch your mind from afar rather than getting caught in the thought tornado.

Time and time again I work with people who tell me they’ve been “practising mindfulness” for years, but as soon as we start talking I realise that what they’ve actually been doing is “Trying to change their thoughts from negative to positive.” (And other variations on that theme).

AKA not mindfulness.

If you’re a bit bloody confused about why mindfulness isn’t really working for you, I can help. If it hasn’t changed your life yet, I suspect there’s part of the puzzle piece missing from your skill set.

Book in for a free chat here to discuss whether the Bloody Good Life 1:1 coaching program is right for you, or head over here to check out the do-it-yourself version, Bloody Good Life D.I.Y.