Books to Blogs #20
Book: 3000 Unique Questions About Me
Question#: 616
Prompt: “How many pink things can you list in the next ten seconds?”
How many pink things can I list in the next ten seconds?
At first, it felt easy.
My ring.
The pencil I was writing with.
A flower.
My lipstick.
And then I stopped.
Not because I couldn’t think of more pink things—but because another thought interrupted the exercise entirely:
How much time has passed since I started naming items?
I wasn’t timing myself.
That made me laugh a little, because what began as a simple, almost silly prompt suddenly became something else. It stopped being about pink and turned into an observation of how my mind works.
That happens more often than we realize.
A playful question is offered. Something light. Something easy. And before long, the mind steps in with analysis. Measurement. Evaluation.
Am I doing this right?
Has it been ten seconds?
Did I miss the point?
Should I have been faster?
What I love about random questions like this is that they don’t just reveal the answer. They reveal the person answering.
Apparently, when asked to list pink things in ten seconds, part of me can play along… and another part immediately starts monitoring the process.
There’s something deeply human in that.
Sometimes we are invited into a moment and instead of staying with it, we begin assessing it. We leave the simplicity of the experience and move into observation, structure, and self-checking. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, awareness is useful.
But it is interesting to notice how quickly we can move away from presence and into performance—even in something as harmless as naming pink objects.
And maybe that’s what stood out to me most.
I could have kept going.
Pink flower. Pink lips. Pink cheeks. Pink nail polish. Pink erasers. Pink sunsets. Pink candy. Pink greeting cards. Pink highlighters. Pink roses.
But the prompt was no longer just prompting a list.
It was showing me that even in a small moment, the mind likes to reach for control. It likes to know the rules. It likes to track time, make sense of things, and figure out whether we are succeeding.
Maybe that’s not a flaw. Maybe it’s just information.
Maybe these little questions are never as little as they seem.
A question about pink can become a question about presence.
A countdown can become a reflection on awareness.
A simple exercise can reveal the part of us that wants to participate—and the part of us that wants to stand just outside the moment and study it.
That’s part of why I enjoy these prompts so much.
They’re playful, yes.
But they’re also revealing.
They catch us off guard.
They show us where our mind naturally goes when no one is watching.
So how many pink things can I list in ten seconds?
Maybe fewer than I could have if I had just stayed with the game.
But maybe the better answer is this:
Sometimes the real answer isn’t what I listed.
it’s what interrupted me while I was listing it.
Reflection:
When was the last time a simple moment revealed something unexpected about the way your mind works?
Always welcome your answers.
Theresa
Flexible Being
Empowering Your Journey to Healing, Clarity, and Self-Discovery.
Concrete solutions. Flexible guidance.
Thank you for being here. If you enjoyed this post, there’s plenty more where that came from, everything from soulful healing tips to playful prompts and real conversations about life.
Find me and connect today. I want to learn about your story:
Email: theresa@flexiblebeing.com
Website: www.flexiblebeing.com
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Theresa Martinez-Shapiro
Hello! I am Theresa Martinez-Shapiro; Wife to Robert. Founder of Flexible Being. A Master Reiki Therapist, Certified Oracle Guide, Spiritual Mentor/Guide, Intuitive Empath, Coach, and Educator. I am a fur mom to 3 cats and 1 dog – Sonny, Patches, Ryelee, and Winnie. We currently live and practice in Stockton, California. We operate three businesses – Shapiro Holistic Health and Chiropractic, Fusion Health APC, and Synergy Health MSO, where we seek to improve and change the lives of our patients and those we have the privilege of crossing paths with. My healing and mentoring journey began around 5 years old when I discovered that I was put on this planet to help others. I knew I was different, unique, and gifted. I did not see the world the same way everyone else did, and recognized I was meant to do so much more. I began to research, spending a lot of time reading & asking a lot of questions to anyone that wanted to share stories about their life experiences. I am a dreamer and had a unique relationship with the dream world. My very real, vivid & lucid dreams began turning into out-of-body experiences and unexplained occurrences. I began doing my own dream interpretations to look for patterns & a new way of deciphering life. Family members were part of many different religions, so I was educated in Catholicism, Buddhism, Metaphysics, and Native American culture & beliefs. Along the way, I took up multiple mentors that cultivated my growth and expansion of my gifts, allowing me to focus on my potential and purpose. As an adult, coworkers were unloading their life stories, internal secrets, and things that had not been shared or even spoken out loud. I began to share those experiences with my aunt & Reiki Master/Teacher, Carmen. In 2012, Carmen told me, “I think you are ready to walk the path I always knew you were meant to walk”. That saying began my obsessive journey into Reiki, Spirituality, Psychology, Intuition and Psychic gifts, Meditation and Mindfulness, Past Lives, Consciousness, Energy Medicine, Mysteries of the Universe, Moon and Sun cycles, Astrology, Numerology, Oracle Cards, Shamanism, & so much more. My journey has helped me to assist patients, clients, families, and friends discover who they have been, who they are, and who they want to become. I am expanding my reach and educating others by authoring Musings of a Flexible Being, and I look forward to sharing my journey with you. Thank you! Theresa Martinez-Shapiro Flexible Being Website: www.flexiblebeing.com Socials: Facebook: @flexiblebeingonline Instagram:@theresamartinezshapiro Instagram: @flexiblebeing
