Knowing Your Enemies

My pawrents decided to get something new- a Roomba. You know, one of those robot vacuum cleaners straight from Satan himself? THIS "MACHINE" FOLLOWS ME AROUND! Am I being paranoid?? No. It does follow me. Am I being dramatic? Maybe a little. Possibly. Okay... I am. But seriously do my pawrents get these thing specifically to make me loose my mind???? *Hmph* I need a nap.

I SUPPOSE I can see the value in a robot that picks up dirt from the floor. It does feel rather nice on my paws to have a clean floor every day, rather than once a week (no judgements, mom, I get you're busy). I guess it is nice when Roomba vacuums at 6am when I'm not awake yet so don't have to hear the awful vacuum noise or be chased around. I really do think it has it out for me, though. I go into a room, it goes into the same room. I lay on a couch, it comes bumping into the couch. I stand at a safe distance observing my enemy and it tries to come closer and closer to get a better look at me. Pure evil, I tell you.

Now that I think about it, wouldn't it be nice to have a machine clean our thoughts every day (not specifically a brain Roomba- that would be terrifying). It'd be nice to go to bed with anxiety thoughts flowing through my brain and wake up with a freshly cleaned mind. That would be some relief! I suppose there's a variety of ways I could TRY to "clean out" my brain before I go to bed. I could do a brain dump (journal all the random thoughts flowing through my head), pray, practice a guided meditation to become an observer of my thoughts not a reactor, read a boring book (so I'm not too engaged but also not giving space to my anxiety thoughts), listen to relaxing music and focus on the tones, watch an episode of Bob Ross on Netflix, or cuddle as close as I can to someone I love and focus on the rhythm of their breathing (I do that with mom a lot- since I act like her 75 pound lap dog). When I go to bed worried about all the ways I failed today, or all the bad things that could happen tomorrow, my brain wakes up feeling mushy and unclear. When I make a little effort to be careful with my before-bed thoughts, mornings are a little easier to handle. There's a lot of value in knowing your enemy- whether it's a Roomba or anxious bed-time thoughts. Once you know them, you can create a plan to overcome them.

Okay, now I'm off to tear apart the Roomba! Wish me luck!

^Me giving Mom side-eyes while the Roomba was running