Category Archives: happiness

happiness, walking

Melissa and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

This morning I woke up feeling like I was staring in my own version of Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Worst of all, nothing had really happened to put me in this mood. It was more the accumulation of a bunch of kind of icky feelings and yucky stresses that had been building up over the course of a few days and decided to make themselves really known today.

Interesting because normally Saturday is my favourite day of the week. We get to sleep in, we usually go downtown to the market (which I love), we get to hang out and relax. Knowing it’s the one day of the week where we don’t have to do anything,  I try to keep the day as stress free for us all as humanly possible.

But, today I woke up just as cranky as hell. Unfortunately (kidding) the kids didn’t wake up in horrible moods also so I knew if the entire house ended up being a black cloud of doom it would have come from me. There is nothing worse than someone sharing their black cloud of doom with you. They were all happy and bouncy. So, I tried to be happy and bouncy too. Fake it till you make it you could say.

Jenna said she didn’t want to go downtown and just wanted to rest and relax. I took advantage of that extra time and worked out on the elliptical (I’m watching original Melrose Place while I work out. It’s awesome!) and then did some yoga and meditated. Still cranky. Better, but still cranky.

Later on in the day I took advantage of the sunny 17 degree (Celsius) weather because the past week has been more like this:windchill

It was glorious on my path. It was filled with couples walking holding hands (I love all the older couples that walk this path holding hands, it warms my heart), families riding bikes, people rollerblading, and people walking dogs. I had invited the kids to join me but they politely informed me they would rather die.

I walked and walked, letting my brain start to unravel. This walk is the place where my brain lets go a bit and allows balance to come back. I started thinking about the things that were upsetting me. Some of them aren’t just little annoyances, they’re big freaking deals. But I tried to step out of myself and look at them. My intention for the year is the path of least resistance – which I am travelling on by allowing things to come, to happen – instead of white knuckling and trying to accomplish things by sheer force (which oddly enough hasn’t worked for me so far).

So, I picked out each of my issues and ran them through my mind and then said ‘ok, so what can I do to change the outcome of this issue?’ With every single issue the answer was nothing. A lot of the problems aren’t mine that I’m carrying. I’m making them my stress, but they aren’t mine to be able to deal with. There is nothing I can do to change the outcome of much of these issues, and no matter how much resistance, force and energy I pour into them – at the end of the day I’m going to just have to allow them to happen anyway.

Crap, this allowing things is harder than I thought.

Working it though made my body heave a huge sigh of relief though. There is nothing I can do to change these things. No action on my part is going to change any of the outcomes. So, by carrying them with me all I’m doing is creating an unnecessary stress which then will be my problem to deal with. But, created out of nothing.

So, I’m going to let that sh!t go.

Happy moment of the day – day 13 of 44 – happened walking on the path. Aside from just the sheer happiness it brought to my heart to see so many people out enjoying themselves, and the peace and joy it brought me being out in warm weather, there was an incident.  (no matter how this reads, the couple was happy and they were totally kidding around) A couple about my age was walking towards me holding hands having (I assume) just had some sort of disagreement. The man gestured towards Dottie and said “Can you get your dog to attack her (points to woman) right in here (points to throat)” he’s laughing – she’s laughing but has this horrified embarrassed look on her face like ‘honey I can’t believe you said that out loud to her’. I stopped, looked him dead in the eye and said “Sorry, but my dog is trained to only attack men, she’s smart that way.” The lady doubled over in laughter pointing at the man who gasped, giggled a bit and then grabbed his wife’s hand and dragged her away while she was still hooting and laughing. It was awesome.

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grounding, happiness, love, mornings, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, parenting, The Magic

The Best Part of Waking Up…

Well for me, it’s not Folgers in my cup since I quit drinking coffee years ago. Now the best part of waking up is knowing that the new day brings the chance for a whole new world of happiness to come to me. New opportunities, new adventures, chances for laughter and time for reflection. Every day is like pressing a reset button and having the chance at a fresh, happy start. Because happiness is a choice, and every single day I get the chance to choose to be happy.

Every night before I go to bed I have taken the advice from The Magic and I hold my magic rock (it’s actually a rock I made in a class years ago at Kripalu) and think over all the wonderful things happened that day, pick the best thing and give gratitude for it. It has become something I really look forward to because it gives me the opportunity to see all the good things that have happened in my day – especially on days when I feel like not a lot of good things have happened. It’s amazing to be able to look back over them and say “oh yes, this… and this… and this…” Then when I wake up in the morning, I try to lie in bed quiet for a few minutes thinking about all the good things I want to happen during the day to come. It’s become a wonderful, peaceful way to start and end my day and I know I feel a lot better just by doing those little things.

This morning I slept in (!) until the alarm and so instead of having my centering moments, I grabbed my phone to turn off the alarm only to see that Jacob was already texting me to see if school was delayed and if he could have pancakes for breakfast (school was on time, I could make pancakes). I was dressed and downstairs in the kitchen before I realized that I hadn’t had my regular morning hatch. Not really knowing how to refocus myself on the day, I figured I should just keep on going and try and make the best of it. I turned on my Pandora radio and it went to the last station I was listening to – Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (don’t judge). The first song was Friends in Low Places and the second one was Cadillac Ranch. Well, after turning those songs up, dancing and singing (badly and loudly) while I got the pancakes ready I was in as good a mood as I’ve been in a morning lately. Music is wonderful therapy.

Kids came  down also in happy moods and we had a pretty smooth, calm morning. We even got to listen to Zack’s Angry Diary on the way to Jenna’s school which is something they both really look forward to – it provides some good laughter as they’re getting ready to start their day.

We dropped Jenna off and went to Jacob’s school. I pulled up in the drop off line and he opened his door, got his things out and turned back to me and said (outside and in public) “Love you, Mom”, then he gave me a big smile and started walking towards school. I was in shock and thought that I must have misheard. I drove up so I was beside him again, rolled down the window and said “Did i hear what I think I heard?” He smiled and said “Yes, have a good day mom.” And walked off into school.

Mommy heart melt. My teenager saying he loves me in public? Priceless. Let me tell you, it’s a great way to set up for a positive day.

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