Day 5 - Shopping and a MAJOR Aha Moment!

Confession - I don't like people. Not like it sounds, I just don't like to be in crowds, especially when shopping. I do not like people in my bubble, nor do I like to be touched. This has been something I've dealt with my whole life. Don't get me wrong, I like to go out and see friends and such, but I can't stand being bumped into in crowds, when people stand too close to me, or - huge pet peeve - when people bump into me with their shopping carts!

Today, because it was unavoidable, I had to go to the grocery store. We were way short on everything important, especially perishables and fresh fruits and vegetables. After putting on some makeup to perk myself up before the dreaded trip, I headed out to run a couple errands then off to the grocery store. This week has been such an eye opener for me, so I decided to try my new attitude change at the store.

Here's the story: As soon as I stepped out of the car I made sure there was a grin on my face. The first person I saw was an older man just inside the door; I smiled at him...and he smiled back. Cool. Okay. Just a fluke. As I continued through the store there were two ladies in the produce department, talking about Parsnips. Yeah, I know, strange topic. Anyway, they were talking back and forth about whether they're good or not, so, I chimed in and told them they were similar to a spicy carrot and smelled awesome. We chit chatted for a couple of seconds and separated to go about our shopping. Huh. Well then. Okay, so down more aisles. This pattern kept repeating itself, with each person I made eye contact with smiling at me, making small comments; I even received a compliment on my hair.

When I was done I went and stood in line behind three guys who looked like they were on a lunch break or something. They glanced at my overflowing cart and joked about how if I'd pay for their groceries, they'd pay for mine. "Deal!" lol Yeah, obviously that didn't happen. My order was over $200 so they had to call a manager over. There was an elderly couple behind me with a small amount of things. I thought "Okay, here we go. They're going to get huffy and invade my personal space or push their cart too close to me." Nope. They smiled, struck up a conversation about feeding a large family and waited patiently. That never happens...like, ever! Once everything was rang up, approved by the manager and ready to be bagged the manager actually brought a second cart over and helped me pull the second one to the bagging table. She joked about having so much, and offered to help me out to the car when I was done. I told her no thank you and proceeded to bag.

As I was pushing the cart out of the store the elderly woman who was behind me smiled big and joked about my cartful, and two register ladies offered to help me out and went back to make sure I didn't forget anything. This was the best and easiest shopping trip I've ever been on. I smiled and changed my attitude about being there and about the people around me and they reacted in kind. Wow.

Had I known I could make my own life easier by changing my attitude about how I react to things I find uncomfortable I would have done this YEARS ago!!!