Sometimes you just wake up feeling sad. You are not looking forward to your day. Thoughts of problems fill your mind, and it is hard to get out of bed. What do you do?
Most often the tendency is to feel sorry for ourselves. The mind recounts all of the reasons that our life is not what we want it to be. Perhaps there is an inventory of all the people we think are making our lives miserable. We may even think of all we have to do that day, how grumpy we will be, and how tired we will be when we fall into bed at the end of that day. Is it any wonder we just want to pull the covers over our head and make the world go away?
There has to be a better way, and there is. What we think in those moments before we get out of bed will set the stage for the rest of the day. Instead of letting the negative infomercials run through your mind, change the channel!
Imagine a day that unfolds as positively as possible. Visualize yourself handling everything with ease. Picture positive interactions with the people you encounter. Imagine yourself having a good day: actually play it out in your mind. See yourself enjoying your shower and getting dressed in something you like. Run through warm greetings that you will give to family and colleagues. Role play in your mind how you will react patiently to fussy children or frustrating traffic. Picture yourself feeling energized and rested throughout your day, and allowing any stress to dissolve.
Think about how you will give yourself some time to relax in the evening, something to look forward to. And then imagine that you will have a restful sleep, waking refreshed and positive the next day. This is a very powerful process for taking charge of your thought processes, and consequently, of your life.
If you take this approach regularly, you will notice a change in the quality of your life. One negative thought can ruin your day. Recently I attended a skating event at the coliseum. The skaters came onto the ice, and skated down to the other end, making their dramatic entrance. A lady behind me said, “Oh, all the good stuff will be down at the other end.” I wondered how she experienced the performance.
I have attended enough times to know that the program is balanced, and designed to give everyone a good view. Some very spectacular things happened down at our end. If she only thought about what she was missing at the other end, that certainly would have detracted from her experience of the whole.
If our first thoughts upon waking are negative, we set ourselves up for a bad day. Sometimes there is heaviness in our hearts and stress in our lives that is real, and so our first thoughts may not be good ones.
We do have the power though, to choose what images we will carry in our minds. It is on the days that we wake up sad or grumpy that it is more important than ever to take charge of our thoughts. If we are programming our day anyway, we might as well program a good one.
Copyright © Gwen Randall-Young, All Rights Reserved. Contact us if you would like permission to reprint.
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