10:59pm and Wide Awake

I'm usually a great public speaker. I've had lots of practice and I like it. I never get nervous or make stupid mistakes...until tonight. I wasn't nervous but my presentation was a total Fail. I was totally thrown off by...lots of stuff.

And later tonight I started thinking about my (feels like new) God-driven Life. One advantage of Faith is that it allows me to take a step back from everything around me, take my time, and make decisions with the trust that the Great Whatever typically takes care of most things anyway. There's no need to stay ahead of each moment... especially since the hardest things in Life have hit me from behind anyway. Blindsided me. Walking in Faith is a patient and thoughtful walk.

I think the problem with tonight was over-planning on my part. What had been a speech for a fluorescent-lit meeting room with bad acoustics and rows of chairs facing in one direction didn't happen. We met at someone's house instead. And I was so far ahead of myself and thinking about what I would say that I lost touch with the Moment. (Didn't help to have a certain someone irk me either.) I totally absorbed bits of everyones' dysfunction in all of the little distractions. Damn. I really did want to make a great impression...now I fear I will be labeled a Ditz.

God-Lesson: Being Present is often more important than being Prepared. Have Faith that the planning I do is adequate (through discipline of course...not supposed to be easy) and to always bring my best Intentions into my interactions.

So...it wasn't a total Fail. They might still think I'm ditzy but they know I care. The "proof's in the pudding." And now that I can set THIS aside, I might be able to make out the MANIC jumble of notes with arrows, numbers, underlines...what a mess! Maybe I should scan the page for an image...prolly not tonight cuz I'm finally sleepy. Feels good to talk it out.

Speaking of which, on the issue of someone irking me tonight: I have no need to say who or why. I am learning other God-driven lessons, too. Some of them are about relationships, boundaries, respect, compassion... the winds of Change are always blowin', that's fer sure. If I can continue to walk in Faith, the Shift that I feel coming might not turn out badly at all. Lord knows I've had me a lot of Shifts in the last couple years...so far so good for the most part!

Sleep tight, Cyber-Universe You too, Cyber-Self