Monday, April 22, 2019

Monday's reflection -- finding calm in the cranky

 
Sooo, raise your hand if you started the day in a pretty decent mood (after getting through the road rage of your commute, of course) and then you accidentally napped during lunch and you’ve been a crank pot ever since.

Nope, just me?
All right, well I guess I’ll put my hand down to finish typing this, this meditation/reflection thing I essentially promised myself I’d write for you today.
I’m tired, and not an obvious kind of tired, like due to lack of sleep or some other real reason. No, I’m that kind of tired where I only know I’m tired because all signs point to it, and those signs are crankiness and crankiness.
I’ve been drinking water. I just made coffee and stopped by a coworker’s office to fill my pocket with jellybeans that I have now consumed. It maybe helped like a teeny tiny bit – but that’s it, people! I’m still cranky! Don’t take this away from me.
Please take this away from me.
In fact, maybe you can take this away from me, because it is my aim this week to continue writing encouraging posts to help keep the people in my blog life going, and in so doing perhaps I’ll encourage myself. So let’s try this, I guess.
OK let’s start by thinking of one thing we’re each looking forward to. It can be Hawaii next month, a concert in August, or it can be putting on your coziest sweats after work tonight. One thing. Let’s close our eyes and really feel and see and think about how that thing is going to calm our inner motion. Watch that waterfall plunging out of the bathtub spout and hitting its puddle below. Hear the soapy crystals tink, tink tap the glass jar as you pour them into the mix. Feel yourself lower into the heat and automatically exhale the moment’s stress and annoyance. Keep your eyes closed.
You’re already there, huh? From the redundancy of your cubicle you’ve just taken a bath (albeit a dry one). And I bet you’re still taking bigger breaths than you were a minute ago, eh? I know I am after that little exercise.
OK next step everyone put your phone away. For 30 minutes, no peeking.
Now, finally, what should our last step be?
Hmm, how about this? Change one thing about your current circumstance. Unless you’re perfectly comfortable and at peace, in which case remain seated, please, and text me the address of whatever spa you’re at because I want to come join you.
Oh wait, no phones. Whoops. Enjoy, then, my sweet friend.
For the rest of us, let’s change something up. Get up and go to the bathroom, particularly if you’ve been ignoring your urge to pee for the last hour. Turn on the fan, open a window. Go fill up a water bottle, steep some tea, sit outside for five minutes. Put on lip balm, spritz your scarf with perfume, go put your feet in warm water.
Ahhhhh, welcome back. What did you do? I took my glasses off and collapsed into some forward folds, touching the carpet and noticing how Rastafarian the color-combo of it is. Isn’t it interesting how one stretch gives birth to about eight more? Stretching always sounds so boring, and a little painful, but whenever we do it it really changes our immediate feelings, massages out some of the struggle. I find it addictive even though it’s rarely enticing enough to begin.
Unfortunately – and, unfortunately again, I have confirmed this with a licensed professional – a lot of the things that make us feel worlds better are not interesting. Their label is boring, they take away from our binge-watching time, and they’re kind of dry.
But so was our bath we took earlier. We had no water, but just in remembering how something we could do could help us unkink our funk, we were able to find ourselves in a better space. I for one feel much less anger toward thin Instagram models than I did an hour ago, I don’t know about y’all.
So let’s move forward, K? Or just sit still as time moves forward, since we don’t really have a choice about the seconds ticking off. But remember they’re not ticking away, we are not losing our place. In taking the time to regroup and to give a hoot about helping ourselves feel better, we are finding our place, and earning back time that would otherwise be spent in tension.
Much love, and we’ll be reflecting again soon. Xox

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