It was a Saturday, I woke up feeling already overwhelmed by the back to back errands that all needed to get done that day. I felt I did not want to wake up. I felt that I wanted to hide under the bedsheets. I felt resistance, and even regret, due to committing to all this in one day because of a deadline the next day.
Then, I started to talk to myself gently. I put my hand on my heart and patted softly saying “It’s alright sweetheart, you can do this, it’s okay.” It really felt good. Just like we calm our children when they are having a hard time coping, we still have this inner child that stomps her feet whenever she feels too tired or not in the mood to go on. I observed my resistance and nurtured myself back to adulthood that morning.
I did not realize I even practiced self-compassion just like I learned in the book Radical Compassion until later in the day, this book got to me and I put it into action when the need arose. It is such a good book, and self-compassion never felt more clear to me than when I read this book. Give it a try.
Have you had a fire-in-heart-setting conversation lately?
This was my experience yesterday when I met 9 members of the Sunrise Winners group I’ve been leading for a while to wake up early and build morning routines that will serve them to win their day. We spent more than 2 hours talking about our morning habits and what’s working for us versus what’s not. We gave each other action points to work on to fine tune our routines or move a goal we were trying to achieve, and we will use the group for accountability.
The best part about this meetup was having a genuine shared interest; to wake up early to take care of ourselves before taking care of our world, be it a family, school, a career or a side business. I left the meeting feeling a charge like no other. I told my own accountability partner about it, and she promised me she will often remind me this is one of my favorite activities to elevate my state and that connection with like-minded people pushes me forward.
This feeling reminded me of this post I wrote before.
I wish you such flames of high energy, dear reader.
I like to tell students the story of a man who went to a mindfulness retreat because his therapist said he’d feel better if he learned to meditate. The retreat turned out to be a real roller coaster. Yes, there were moments of calm, but he also plunged deeply into fear, anger, and grief. The next time he saw his therapist, he told him he’d suffered horribly. “How could you have promised I’d feel better?” Nodding sagely, the therapist replied, “You are feeling better . . . you’re feeling your fear better, feeling your anger better, feeling your grief better!
I’m sharing with you a quote I read last night that perfectly aligns with the blog post I wrote in the morning.
“I pray not to be such a whiny, self-obsessed baby, and give thanks that I am not quite as bad as I used to be (talk about miracles). Then something comes up, and I overreact and blame and sulk, and it feels like I haven’t made any progress at all. But it turns out I’m less of a brat than before, and I hit the reset button much sooner, shake it off and get my sense of humor back. That we and those we love have lightened up over the years is one of the most astonishing sights we will ever witness.“
I feel the same. We are becoming more resilient, we are bouncing back faster after failure. This makes me hopeful and more committed to all my good daily habits.
Let’s keep waking up early, meditating, journaling and reading. Let’s keep praying and moving our bodies. Let’s keep reading our affirmations and visualizing our success.
When an idea presents itself to me more than once in a couple of days, my ears perk up, and I listen. This time, it seems I need to take care more care of being aware of and creating JOY in my life.
Here are the passages that presented themselves to me from three different sources in less than 24 hours:
“We can make joy and gratitude a daily habit and standard simply by measuring how often we cultivate such emotions. Several times each day we can assess our success by asking, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much joy and gratitude am I bringing to this moment?” There is power in this wording. We are not asking how much joy and gratitude we are experiencing in the moment, as if we are somehow entitled to such high emotions. We are demanding personal responsibility—how much am I bringing?” -Brendon Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto
“Choose joy. Choose it like a child chooses the shoe to put on the right foot, the crayon to paint a sky. Choose it at first consciously, effortfully, pressing against the weight of a world heavy with reasons for sorrow, restless with need for action. Feel the sorrow, take the action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity pulling the stream down its course; until it becomes an inner law of nature. If Viktor Frankl can exclaim “yes to life, in spite of everything!” — and what an everything he lived through — then so can any one of us amid the rubble of our plans, so trifling by comparison. Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice. So often, it is a matter of attending to what Hermann Hesse called, as the world was about to come unworlded by its first global war, “the little joys”; so often, those are the slender threads of which we weave the lifeline that saves us.” -Maria Popova, Learnings from 14 Years of Brain Pickings.
“Joy for human beings lies in proper human work. And proper human work consists in: acts of kindness to other human beings, disdain for the stirrings of the senses, identifying trustworthy impressions, and contemplating the natural order and all that happens in keeping with it.” – Marcus Aurelius.
This week, I will ask myself often: “how am I bringing joy to this moment?” I wrote the word JOY in my weekly planner and listened to this amazing Joy song this morning to keep it alive in my heart and mind.
Finally, I got to feel that summer break has officially started as we enjoyed the first full weekend without any due homework or assessments to prepare for. I feel like the Universe created new hours, wrapped them up, and offered them in a shiny box for me. I am grateful for the gift of time.
I slept more, played with my kids more, and happily got overdue chores done. Please note the word “happily”.
Maybe not all summer weekends will feel as blissful. I am just taking the time, here is that word again, to honor the freedom to create our own schedules for the coming weeks.
My friend told me about a unique experience she had with a doctor she visited recently for a consult regarding a skin condition that her baby has. As she was about to feel discouraged due to terrible experiences with previous doctors, this doctor proved otherwise.
My friend told this doctor about a new research she found that would help with the particular condition her baby has. The young doctor asked for the research, read it on the spot then openly said he did not hear of it before, but, if it was his son he would try the nonintrusive treatment prescribed in the research immediately. You can imagine the relief my friend felt.
This doctor was an example of empathy and kindness. He helped calm the fear the parents had. Furthermore, he said he will study this research more to help other patients, and he did not even charge the young couple. He made a lasting positive impression and built trust with his willingness to educate himself and putting himself in the shoes of his patients. I wish there were more doctors like him.
You wanted to start today perfectly, but you didn’t? You were not at your best behavior perhaps? You snapped at someone or criticized others? You were mean, even?
I listened to something beautiful recently from Waking Up App about the power of beginning again. It went something like this, and I am paraphrasing here: “When we notice how we are acting, we need to make amends if we can then forgive ourselves immediately and completely. After that, we decide to free fall into the next moment without any residue of the past. “
We don’t need to take on the weight of guilt to the next moment.
I loved it so much. Today I needed it again. Maybe you do too?
It feels like stumbling on a treasure to me whenever I find interviews where my most favorite authors talk to each other, it’s like: “I knew it! They DO know and like each other and life makes sense and my interests are so cohesive”. I actually squealed with excitement when I first saw the recording of the LIVE interview of Seth Godin with Martha Beck for her new book (The Way of Integrity). I always wondered if Seth and Martha knew each other and they did (imagine my excitement if I watched it in real time).
Another collaboration I enjoyed listening to and learning from last week, although done in 2019, is between my heroes Cal Newport and James Clear who continue to inspire me every single day including my latest podcast content.
One more brand new collaboration I highly recommend you go check out is the virtual book launch with the fantastic authors Jon Acuff and Greg McKeown about their just released books (Soundtracks and Effortless). As I mentioned in previous posts, I am reading them both and finding them beautifully complementing each other. Yesterday’s post was actually how they started this conversation and I had no idea they did until I listened to it this morning.
I also smiled when Greg said that going past episode 20 in your podcast is a huge success that only about 10% of podcasts achieve, others quit before.