My first recording was actually a video on my computer. I had spent a night of physical closeness with a man I was in love with, after which he had stopped replying to my texts. In tears, I spent a whole weekend looking for guidance online until I came across an interview with Cheri Huber who talked about Recording and Listening Practice.

Thanks to Life’s grace, Cheri’s words resonated so deeply that I didn’t even wait until the end of the interview before I turned on the video app on my computer (I didn’t know that my phone had a recorder on it) and started pouring everything out: how in love I was, how betrayed I felt, how lonely and forsaken.

Until that moment, those words had just been swirling around in my head and they were immediately followed by “You’re such an idiot, how could you, you don’t respect yourself, you do have a radar for jerks don’t you?”

Following the instructions, before saying these judgmental things on the video, I re-listened to what I had recorded up to that point. And there she was, a sweet sweet girl, who was in horrible pain, with so much love to give, such willingness, such a funny sense of humor — even in this situation.

Oh, she was soooo not an idiot. It was so heartwarming to hear her enthusiasm and so heart breaking to hear her disappointment. Maybe that guy had not fallen in love with her, but I did, and I told her, repeatedly.

Fast forward six years later. I’m writing this on the last day of Semana Santa, a 4 day Easter holiday when everybody where I live travels. Last week, for the first time in my life, I mustered the courage to make the first move with a man and invited him to come on a trip with me. He said yes, but then essentially stopped replying to my texts.

Well, thankfully I now have a whole folder on my recorder for situations like this. (Apparently I do have a radar for them, it’s called “karma”). So there I was asking the mentor “Did I text something really stupid?” “Is he ignoring me on purpose, showing my silly messages to a super model with two PhDs he’s just met and with whom he’s decided to travel instead of me?”

Now the Mentor knows me so well that she knows when I need to be consoled and when I need to be shaken to wake up. “Honey, you know I love you always, but are you being serious? Please tell me that at least you are enjoying this Easter Soap Opera that Ego is creating out of thin air…. Otherwise, may I give you some other options? Do you really want to be a character in Ego’s victim story?”

It sounds harsh, and it surely wouldn’t have worked six years ago, but, man, this was exactly what I needed to hear. We (the Mentor and whoever else was there) got to the point of reading the whole text exchange with the guy out loud to the recorder and could clarify that there was nothing wrong with it, or with me, or with anything else, and on I could go with my day*. The karma might be the same, but my life is so much better now.

*Until it popped up again, but fortunately the Mentor is always there.

Do you have a favorite R/L insight, idea, or practice tool? We’d love to hear it! Send us your favorite quick tip (75 words or less) or submit your idea for a blog post.