This morning, after waking up...
I put one banana in my left ear
and another in my right ear...
in a desperate attempt to silence the voices inside of my head,
those who I named 'The Other Monsters'.
Going for two coffees hadn't been the best of ideas.
The voices were going crazy!
Who am I kidding?
Answer: You guys.
First of all:
Eventhough I might have bigger ears than the average person, bananas still don't fit into them. Unless, I mash them first, etc.
Second of all: the voices were not racing today. They were pretty quiet.
How come?
I had a nice breakfast, consisting of sugar free ( locally produced ) cornflakes as well as a non sprayed, organically grown grapefruit, with cane sugar and a calming tea on the side.
I then walked 25 minutes through nature, into the village, following this path:
The weather was quite perfect. Calm and still somewhat cool, for the start of Summer.
The fact that I was going to have coffee, before I would be picked up by a friend, to drive to a tennis court with natural swimming water right next to it, made me feel even better.
We hadn't played in two months!
Here's a picture of the (hard)court, with a view, just before we started playing.
Even though he beat me 6-3 6-2, we battled - and had fun - for about an hour and 15 minutes, if I don't count the warming up and the cooling down, and I actually broke his serve a number of times ( though not as many times as I lost mine haha! )
My friend plays a bit more regularly than I do and also follows a lot of tennis YouTube tutorials, including on mental coaching. I basically follow the ATP Tour Pro matches, like a person with OCD, checking almost all the scores and I watch short summaries of important games, almost daily but playing is an entirely different ball game.
It helps though that I played badminton for 3 years, table tennis for the same amount of time, some squash and some tennis, decades ago. I have a feeling for the game.
Anyhow, before I bore you too much...
We had fun, then cooled down in the water, right next to the tennis court. It was amazing. It felt so good that I couldn't stop smiling. I felt recharged, super calm and fit.
After my friend dropped me off in my village again, I had one more coffee and a toastie, talked with a friend for a bit and then walked home, for another half hour or so ( mainly uphill ), feeling like I got in plenty of exercise for the day.
I felt so good that I didn't need to listen to music ( on my headphones ), as it was not necessary to silence any negative voices. They weren't strong enough today.
It's now hours later and I'm still feeling good.
I will have some family coming over for dinner and then my 10 year old nephew will spend the night here. We will definitely watch a movie together.
Looking forward to it!
I hope you had a nice day too and that you keep prioritizing getting out there to enjoy nature and time with friends, as much as you can.
