Good morning, G.O. readers!
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was good, (however I did start to feel not so good as Christmas night unfolded–but that’s another story). I spent time with my mom and sister, and my nieces and nephew. It was a lot of fun watching all the kids opening their gifts. The second half of my day, was spent opening presents with my husband’s mother and sister. After eating with the in-laws, I went back to my mom’s and visited with her and one of my cousins. Finally around 7pm, my husband and I were back at home ready to exchange our gifts from each other. Overall, Christmas was a busy day, spent visiting family, opening gifts, and eating.
Fast forward to Saturday night. By Saturday night, I had already spent all day Friday and all day Saturday physically feeling like crap. But in addition to not physically feeling my best, I started to focus on the fact that Monday was quickly approaching, and soon I’d be back at work with no more holiday season to focus on to get me through the work day, (so let’s just say, my mental state jumped on board with my physical one). I know this will still be a short work week due to being off on New Year’s Day, (and I’m very grateful for that), but it’s still not the same as having that “Christmas Holiday High”. That’s one of the things that I do hate about the Christmas season–once Christmas is gone, I can sometimes get this depressed feeling of, ‘okay, now what?’
I knew I wasn’t going to be looking forward to returning to work today. I’m thankful to have a job to return to, (because I know if I didn’t have one, that would create more issues), but there is still this major mental resistance to having to adjust to being “on” again. In the line of work I am currently doing, we have to deal with the general public. I’m not saying that’s bad; I’m just saying that sometimes, you mentally don’t feel like putting on the “people person” hat. All my thoughts about Monday morning, got me to thinking about Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie. They’re both proponents of making peace with the present moment. Byron Katie’s book is even entitled, “Loving What Is” (I think I discussed it briefly in an older entry).
I thought about really giving their methods a try today. What if I could fully accept whatever happens today without fighting against it or cursing it? What if I could want whatever comes up in the present moment? If it’s busy today, what if I could just let it be busy without getting mad about it and making war against it? It wouldn’t have to mean that I like it, but I could just fully accept that a lot of people are coming in, and just say okay. Eckhart says that just because you accept something doesn’t have to mean that you like it or condone it. You just recognize that fighting with the way present moment presents itself is futile. You can actually bring about more change by being peaceful in the moment and choosing to accept it.
The only effective action you can take is to either change the situation if you can, remove yourself from it, or, if you can do neither of those things, then fully accept it (until you can do something to change it). Fighting against it doesn’t really do anything, and only serves to make you miserable. So I am going to give it a try this morning. I am going to do my best to make peace with whatever arises today. I know I can’t control how many people will choose to come through the doors or what actions my co-workers decide to take this morning. All I can do is control my attitude in each situation. I can choose to just observe what arises, (and even acknowledge that I do or don’t like it); but to get all upset and bent out of shape about things, isn’t really solving anything. I suppose it does make more sense to just say, I don’t like this; now instead of having a fit, let me place all my focus on positive steps I can take to move on to a better situation, (like working on my book during downtime instead complaining about work rules and policies). By completing my book, I’m getting one step closer to moving to a reality more in line with what I desire, than by focusing on how much I dislike the sound of my supervisor’s voice early in the morning. Am I the only one?
So here’s to wishing all of us returning to work this Monday morning, a peaceful, stress-free day; but if that’s not going to be the case, may we be able to accept what arises and take practical action to change what we don’t like, (or come up with lucrative, exciting, and fun ways to remove ourselves from said situations).
Let’s do this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Girl October