It Was Just One Of Those Days…
By Ellen Luksch
- Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
It was just one of those days…
This used to be one of the ways I talked to myself. It was the way my mind excused a day that was miserable from its of view. It was often the way my mind justified a day of being down on myself. Those down days usually started with some mishap (spilled coffee, lost keys, dead cell phone) and I can hear myself saying, “Here we go, it’s going to be one of those days!” And I was most often right because that’s what caught my attention… what was not going right. It was my self-fulfilling prophesy and there were more gloom and doom prophesies than those other kind. I forgive my mind. It has a notion of keeping me safe that includes keeping me “on track” and “hemmed in”. My mind simply learned to function from that point of view. It became my norm.
Every once in a while, I was graced with a great day. These days came when my mind felt that what happened met its expectations. The coffee stayed in the cup, the keys were on the hook and the phone was in the charger. It never hurt if someone offered a compliment and being “in love” conquered all bad days. I finally woke up and asked, “what is this?” (with a little help from “my friends”) Who has these expectations? Where do they come from? How many ways does my mind seek to justify self-abuse and self-doubt? (The answer was, “many ways”.)
So now, “it is what it is”. My interpretation is an option and I have the choice about the interpretation I choose. Yes, it is my choice. I choose acceptance. No matter what interpretation my mind creates, I choose the ones that serve self-love and self-acceptance. It is the only option. My mind may try to argue that I am not being realistic but I choose. Does this interpretation feel good? If no, then there are always other options. If they do not meet my mind’s expectations, “so what?”. There is only what feels aligned with my heart/my integrity or what is aligned with my fear/my comfort zone/my usual interpretation of reality.
What is reality? It is simply where I put my attention. Here or there makes all the difference in my feeling response. Why choose an interpretation that feeds the self-doubt? Because it is the standard model? I choose a new standard model. I retrain my interpretations to fit love. It takes patience and time but the rewards are numerous. The greatest reward is union with my integrity. It is the peaceful center I experience every time I choose love. It is an end to self-recrimination and second-guessing. It is the realization is that the only reality I create is the one that receives my attention and an interpretation that favors love, because I place my faith in that choice. So it is.
A Beautiful Walk Inside You
Through this blood veil the lover sees a beautiful walk.Reason says, There are only six directions, north, east, south, west, up, and down. There is no way out of those limits.
Love says, But I have many times escaped.
Reason comes to a marketplace and begins haggling prices. Love wanders away with other business to transact, something to do with incomparable beauty.
From Rumi: Bridge to the Soul translated by Coleman Barks
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