6:47 a.m.... My day so far....
I woke at 4:53 a.m. I wish I could tell you I am a natural at this wake up time, but it is simply the after effect of a few days with lots of meditation infused in it. Meditation oddly makes me lots more AWAKE in the days following even though I am fighting to stay awake during the stillness (????)...So I decided to get up and meditate some MORE, which felt amazing...and then I got a few things done...a little planning and corresponding...
Then I heard coffee perking because I remembered to set up the coffee pot last night and press the "Program" button like the Amazing Business Woman in my mind does every evening before bed time... And while we were on a roll, (me and this fictitious friend of mine that does ALL of the Things right ALL of the Time) I thought I'd cook some banana bread for my girls to start their week off nicely since I haven't as much as popped a bagel in a toaster for them in weeks....
And I was feeling good, you know? Like, a big exhale that became, "Oh, this is WHO I am...this person that does the things and does them well...." It felt really nice...UNTIL...the avocado caught my eye. And I KNEW....I'd fallen short for the week already at 6:32am on Monday...I cut it open and of course it was sort of good, but sort of over ripe. I am not sure if I can blame the time change (uhhhh, from my beach trip last week that threw me off one hour a day!?) for the mystery hour I missed with the ripe window for this avocado, but lately these greenish monsters on my counter are bringing me down. I don't think I have cut one open at its peak in weeks...maybe even a month...And it was comical in a dark-thirty kind of way to see how fast my mind wanted to write off the whole day because of the brown top half of this $2 piece of fruit/vegetable(?) that apparently holds part of my self worth in its slimy seed...
Thankfully it passed quickly and the meditation effects from earlier reminded me to see the humor in the whole shenanigan. After all, there was banana bread baking and hot coffee to carry me through! But alas the creamer was out, and I had to use almond milk which spun me back to the doom of the avocado disappointment.
And it leaves me with this thought (and a bad aftertaste that makes me want to scrape my tongue...why is almond milk in my coffee so bad?)...I recently read that in other areas of the world, people rarely ask about what each other does. Instead people ask,
"Where are you going?"
"Where are you from?"
"Who are you here to see?"
"Do you like avocados?"
"Do you take creamer with your coffee (because I have some...)?"
But we ask, "What do you do?" And hear me....I don't see anything wrong with this or its original intention to connect and find out about one another except that I think it has soaked in wrong...we have internalized the idea that we ARE what we DO....which leads to crazy beliefs that perpetuate this rewiring of ourselves more around what we DO and less around who we really ARE. At some point we find ourselves saying,
"I'll sleep when I'm dead."
"Life is so busy...work now...play later."
"I'm slammed."
"I'm overworked underpaid."
"I'm just trying to keep my head above water."
"I'm so far behind I'll never catch up."
"I'm in up to my ears."
"Add that to my list."
Somehow our deeds become busy-ness and the busy-ness becomes comparison, and the comparison eventually measures us against a fictitious being created by impossible standards....it's like our minds catalog everyone else's perfect moment until it has enough of these perfect pieces gathered from 100 other people's high moments to build some PERFECT Lego looking prototype of a person to compare ourselves to at every turn...we rebuild as our minds collect this data of perfection and the mythical happiness that accompanies it.
Even with all of this "slowdown" that we half complain about and half like, we are obsessed with our "doing." All of this ruminating and talking about what we can and can't do can be a catalyst for endless to-do lists and Should-ing all over ourselves. Why can't we remember that it isn't what we do but who we are being that matters?
Do we feel the reminder of who we ARE because of a God who loves is so BIG...so boldly that we were uniquely wired and created to offer our own gifts to the world by simply BEing true to ourselves?
Maybe connecting back to gratitude and truth will redirect our lists and actions, so that what we DO is a reflection of who we ARE...A friend recently posted on Instagram about her simple gratitude practice that changed her mindset during a time of high anxiety and sadness. Naming three things she was truly grateful for each day shifted her perspective. She found herself looking for the simple goodness...the perfectly ripe avocado, the yumminess of her creamer in her coffee...you know, the simple good things...So wanna try it with me? I'll be jotting down my moments and sharing them with a friend to keep my accountable. If you'd like to join me, let me know! The more the merrier!
And I'll go buy creamer and premixed guacamole to get a head start for tomorrow...and exhale, yes, exhale, too.
xo,
Melynda