Mind Set Go

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The time is now to ring in the new day with:

Constant Appreciation

Reality Checks

Earthly Roots

Advocation for Others and Yourself

Temperance

Education

Is it…

Another acryonym

Another day

Another breath you take

Another bed to make

Another back to wash

Another vow to break?

How have you chosen to live?  Can you live with constant appreciation and yes, even admiration for the good today brings?  (Read on.  I, at least, believe this does get better.)  Can a reality check hone home your earthly roots lending your ear and your heart to advocate for yourself and others?  Can you experience temperance in what you do, what you say and how you feel?  Can you soak in that around you to provide true learning from that around you, of that around you?

Not that many years ago I felt poisoned almost beyond recognition.  I had literally allowed and accepted with gratitude actual poison to be administered into my body.  And, there’s no other way to describe it: my body responded with vengeance.  My will to live was strong, however, and I did live.  That experience has led me to appreciate in ways I had never known.  But, admittedly, there were many days during that time that I was surprised when my eyes opened and I greeted a new dawn. 

Today is dawning.  And what are you?  Yawning? 

How many breaths taken for granted?

It’s not how many hugs you have missed,

how many mouths you have kissed.

If you open your arms and give back,

you will be rewarded and loved

and yes, one day missed.

About twenty-five years ago or so, I shared a plan with a close friend.  We were having a lunch date, sitting down to have some Chinese food together.  It was another day.

I had figured out that I was tired of living a life of never feeling good enough for what I had done—of living life guilt-ridden.  And so, yes, I had figured out in my tiny brain that there was a way to feel good about the day.  This is an approximation of what I told her:

I’m tired of feeling bad about what I don’t accomplish (around the house, at least) and so I’ve come up with this:

Monday: Make Beds

Tuesday: Toilets

Wednesday: Wash

Thursday: Tidy Up

Friday: Floors

(But there was more to share about this plan so read on.) 

Monday’s mantra meant to concentrate on the bedrooms.  To do what I could to clean and organize those rooms in my space.

Obviously Tuesday was a day to do that in with the bathrooms, and Wednesday was a day to tackle all of the wash.  Thursday became the day to dust and pick things up, and then Friday was the day to vacuum and mop.

Simple enough.  But wait, there’s more that I shared about this plan:

So let’s say it is Sunday and there are beds to make, toilets to clean, laundry to do, lots of mess to deal with.  Well, you see, if I were to do a load of laundry on that day, something other than laundry would happen.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed or bad about just how much laundry there was to do or just how many cobwebs I had somehow ignored…  instead of all of that… I could and would feel really good.  You see, I had gotten ahead on Wednesday’s chores.  And when I changed my sheets and picked up my clothes that day, I, too, had made the rest of the week’s loads, literally and figuratively, a little easier. 

This way, instead of constantly feeling bad, I could feel good.  All of the time.  If when Monday came, and I didn’t really have the time or energy to get everything done in the bedrooms, it was okay.  There would be another Monday and even every other day of my life, should I be that “well-endowed” with another, to concentrate on that area of my existence.

This way of looking at things can save your life.  Life is not about what you do or did not accomplish or the to-do list you, yourself, created.  You don’t have to feel overwhelmed; you see, you can pick up a broom on any day of the week, and you can feel good.  Really good.  You can remove self-imposed guilt.  You have that ability.  Instead of wishing the day away, you can get ahead of those mindless thoughts and feelings that you have a way of believing is your reality.

This acronym:

Constant Appreciation

Reality Checks

Earthly Roots

Advocation for Others and Yourself

Temperance

Education

is a way to create… not a new you, but the real you.  The real you is kind and inquisitive, is open, lives life like a little kid filled with unbounding energy and joy

despite the aches and pains that may be felt at this time and place. If you begin moving in new ways, your mind may even make those aches and pains something it is so used to; it could look at them as old friends.  You don’t know until you open yourself to that.

Welcome this new dawn.  Sing in your heart like that little bird ringing in the new day; feel good every step of the way.  Then share that message, that joy.  Not just with others but with every cell in your body. 

There is one caveat.  Energy takes energy. 

Use your mindset starting with this breath to bring yourself back to reality.  Let the earth into your lungs and “fire out” a bit of you “back at it” when you let it go. 

Create a new mindset to begin with that first, your exhalation, and then open yourself to what enters the seemingly ever-expanding lungs you use to take part of this experience on the home we call earth.  Here.  Now.  With gratitude. 

Live your life, letting go of all vengeance, guilt and strife.  Move.

We all have the opportunity of the same twenty-four hours to do it.  Your hours may become special, however, when you apply constant appreciation and reality checks and when you recognize your earthly roots—which can then create opportunities for you to advocate for yourself and others with temperance and as little ignorance as can be mustered through life-long learning.  God speed.