My day started shortly after I went to bed. I was awakened roughly six times throughout my nightly slumber by our feline friend who felt compelled to snuggle, and once snuggling suddenly had some other urgent business to take care of. Each time he enters the room it is preceded by shrill meowing. As you can imagine, I was working on falling back asleep only to hear my alarm for the day chime in.
I was so tired and grumpy I could hardly form words. I proceeded to put together an edible lunch for my daughter for school, made some feeble attempts at helping her get ready and out the door so we could arrive on time, before 8am. We walked through the doors at 7:59, just barely making eluding the dreaded tardy slip. After that, I knew I needed some strong caffeination fast if I was going to turn this day around. What I have also come to realize over the years, is that there are many aspects to a day, and a nice, warm Americano was just the thing to begin this process. What happens to so many people is that those waking moments have a great tendency to define and shape our entire day. When we begin to look at those many aspects of our day as new days within our day, it is much easier to “start over”, “hit “reset”, or recalibrate our course. I chose to redirect mine with a cup of coffee and a pause to choose how I wanted the rest of my day to go.
Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. – Nido Qubein
In another fifteen minutes, I was at my Chiropractic appointment. I had about half of my coffee before I got there and it hadn’t quite kicked in yet, but I was already feeling better. They call what a chiropractor does, making an adjustment, and this morning, it couldn’t have been truer as I was getting physically adjusted, so was my attitude. As I was feeling better, I also realized that I needed some breakfast, so I stopped to get my favorite scone at the local market. As I sat there eating and drinking the rest of my coffee, the sun literally and figuratively poked its head out of the clouds. What I have come to know and practice in my life is that any act can be a meditation, if you give yourself the time and space to be present. I used to think that meditation meant sitting, or lying down for a period of time, but I now do my best to make the actions in my life a meditation as well. I can be sipping my coffee or going for a walk and that is my meditation. I give myself the space and time to clear my mind, then focus and decide how I want to proceed with what I am doing next. Outcomes are not determined by what I do as much as they are by how I do them, and that goes for the course of my day too.]]>