Let’s take two different scenarios of how a day unfolds, both which I’m quite sure you’ve probably encountered more than once.
Scenario #1
Your alarm goes off.
You hit snooze.
It goes off again.
You hit snooze again.
This dance goes on until you literally have no choice except to get out of bed or you’ll be late to work. (Well, later to work.) You drag your sleepy self to the kitchen for some coffee, you trip on the way back to your room and spill the coffee all over yourself. You get frustrated and something to the effect of “Of course that would happen!” comes out of your mouth.
You clean yourself up, get more coffee and then rush to get ready for work. You’re already running 15 minutes late, you can’t find the shoes you’re wanting to wear, so you spend another 5 minutes on a scavenger hunt before settling on a different pair you don’t even like.
You feel a hunger pain in your stomach, look at the time and realize you’re already running so far behind, so you skip breakfast. You run out the door, forgetting to grab your lunch in your rush. You get in your car, get 5 minutes down the road before seeing your gas light come on. In your frustration you shout something like “what else can possibly go wrong today?!”
You know there are two gas stations, one is right off the highway on the way to work, in your frustration you forget about the one that’s close to your house and know you’ll need to stop at the one closer to work right off the highway. You get on the highway only to find bumper to bumper traffic due to an accident miles ahead.
Your current energetic state? Hungry, late for work, in shoes that don’t fit, about to run out of gas and all around in a really bad mood.
You sit in the traffic grumbling to yourself about people who can’t drive, the nightmare that’s going to be waiting for you at work, the trouble you’ll be in with your boss and how if people would just learn how to drive everything would’ve been fine.
Scenario #2
Your alarm goes off.
As you turn it off you give your body a really large good-morning stretch.
You grab your notebook and start doing stream-of-consciousness journaling, just writing down all the things that come into your head while you sip on a glass of water.
You head downstairs to get your coffee, you’re greeted by the sun and you let it hit your face while you wait for your brew to finish. You can’t help but think about all the things you’re grateful for – this magnificent coffee for one.
You head back upstairs to get ready to head off to work. You have enough time to eat a fueling breakfast, you get into your closet and pick out clothes that make you feel good and head for the door grabbing your pre-packed lunch on the way out. You have a really busy day today at work and you’ll be looking for your feel-good fuel at lunchtime!
You get in your car, get 5 minutes down the road before seeing your gas light come on. Darn it, you think, I knew I forgot to do something yesterday. Thank goodness I’m passing right by a gas station on my way to work!
After you fill up, you get on the highway to find bumper to bumper traffic due to an accident miles ahead. “Ok, well this definitely isn’t ideal, but what can I do?” you think. You let your boss know that despite leaving enough room for traffic on your commute, it doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere anytime soon. You take a deep breath and remember that there was a podcast you started listening to a few days ago that you didn’t get to finish. You fire it up and listen while you wait for the accident to get cleaned up so you can get on your way to work.
You know things will be a little crunched once you get there, but the timing is out of your control right now. You’re just grateful it wasn’t you involved in the accident and you send love to the people who were.
Which scenario would you rather have play out?
Which scenario looks more like your days in most cases? I do realize that scenario number 2 might sound a little lofty, a little too “in a perfect world.” The point here isn’t necessarily about the events, it’s the energy and attitude you bring to the events.
We always hear that we can’t control the things that happen to us, but we absolutely can control how we respond to them. When you’re already in a lower vibration state of being – meaning you are grumpy and knowingly or unknowingly bringing a negative vibe to yourself and your day – the events of your day seem to follow suit.
Seek and you will find.
Usually when we’re feeling angry, we inevitably find more reasons to be angry. We nitpick and complain. We might even pick arguments with people. We may not intentionally want to be angry, but the events of our day are making us feel more like a victim and we go down the energy drain.
In contrast though, haven’t you ever noticed that when your day looks more like scenario number 2 that your day seems to flow in a more positive direction? Things seem brighter and shinier? Even seemingly bad things don’t always seem so bad, at the very least we can start to see solutions to things or even just look for the silver lining. We just FEEL better all around, about everything that’s happening in our lives.
Is everything perfect? Heck no, but we are so aware that things could be a lot worse that we’re turning more into GRATITUDE than anything. Take the car accident in the scenarios above. Scenario 1 looked at it through anger eyes as a major inconvenience. Scenario 2 looked at it as not ideal, but through the eyes of gratitude that they weren’t involved in that accident, because that would’ve been so much worse than getting stuck in traffic.
Sometimes it’s hard to see that our states of being and the way we’re walking through the world and how we choose to respond to things really affects our energetic vibration. Sometimes the things that fuel scenario number 1 are late nights, restless sleep, not feeling your best, having a really hard time waking up in the mornings, things that are seemingly beyond our control. Except there are a lot of things you actually can do to help support your body and emotions in these instances!
Everything from eating the right foods that fuel your body, having a great evening wind down routine to prepare your body for sleep, removing any disturbances from the bedroom, giving yourself the time for different self-care practices like taking a bath with lavender essential oil and even just turning the TV off an hour before you go to bed could make a world of difference in how you feel the next day and how much energy you have, and that’s just in how you choose to end the day!
What about when you wake up the next day? We can think about all the different ways that you can prepare your body for your day ahead, even if it’s crazy busy. For sure you’ve had days like scenario 2 where you’ve just felt peaceful and grounded, like you were just floating through the day and everything was going really amazing.
If you haven’t had one of those days in a while, isn’t it time you turn some focus onto how you can create more of those days for yourself?
In our Nourish to Flourish Energy workshop on January 12th, you’re going to learn so many ways that you can fuel your mind, body and soul to really be present in your day and truly live a life you love – one that you’re actively creating rather than just trying to survive the one you think you got stuck with.
Workshop details and registration are online. We’d love to have you join us!
