I hope you’re having an awesome day! If not, it’s time to
turn it around. You can do it – change your attitude or perspective. Share a
few smiles, fake them if you have to, until you feel better. How the day turns
out is totally up to you.
Yesterday I mentioned the Mentor archetype. I will post a
story today on my blog, but I wanted to take a moment to mention something related
to the Mentor. I mention this particular topic because its come up over and
over for me this morning. What I’ve heard is a repetition of quote, news
stories, and observations about how BUSY all of us are. We’re busy working,
busy cooking, busy taking the kids somewhere, busy finishing something, bust
surfing the Internet… We are just covered up in input and information. We stay
constantly busy all day, and when we need to sleep, we can’t sleep. Is it any
wonder? We’ve given our brains so many stimuli during the day, our poor brains
are still trying to process what happened at 1 or 2 pm. Why? Because we never took time when we had
it to sit down in a quiet area and just breathe or relax for a few minutes.
That’s all our brain needs – just a few minutes to stop receiving input and
file away what it needs to keep. How many times a day do you stop doing
something and just breathe? I’m not talking about vegging out and watching TV.
I don’t mean listening to music. I mean literally sitting or lying down, in the
quiet, and concentrating and the breath going in and out of your body.
Remember, I mentioned yesterday we take 20,000 breaths per day – what if you
noticed 100 on them today? Simply sit down, in the quiet (no stimuli), and
counted each of those breaths?
Part of the mess we are in as a culture is the compulsive
need to surround ourselves with constant input. This could have stemmed from
our childhood of constant activity, our economic lean toward productivity – if
I’ not doing anything I’m not being productive, or it could be that we simply
don’t want to sit in the quiet and reflect on anything. I know that it’s
difficult for me to sit and think about things I’ve done during the day, or to
just count breaths. However, this self-reflection is an essential part of
becoming a better person than one was the day before. What we want to avoid is
feeling badly about anything we’ve done. We’ve been trained that it’s not
“right” to feel badly – ever. This is a ludicrous notion. Sometimes we ARE
going to feel badly about something. That doesn’t mean we’re not happy; it
means we’re thinking about our actions and looking for a way to improve them
the next time. That’s self-reflection, and it won’t happen while we’re busy,
busy, busy with this, that, or the other urgent need. Sometimes, the most
urgent need is to take a few moments to ourselves. That time we take for
ourselves is our time to Mentor ourselves. Maybe we’re at a point in our lives
where no Mentor figure is available. We can teach ourselves something, but we
have to have the stillness and patience to do it.
Continue to smile today, even if you’re busy! Borrow my
smile if you have to. Then take a few minutes, force yourself to do it, but
take a few and count your breaths. See what happens afterward. Try it for a few
days. See if you start to sleep better. I’m not making guarantees, but it seems
worth a try. J
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