After a week off for spring break, my 9 year old son Mason wasn’t so happy about going back to school today.
”How many days left in the year?” He asks while we’re waiting for the bus.
I pull out my phone and quickly scroll the calendar. "Around 40," I say.
UGH, he lets out a big sigh….”Well I won’t be happy until there’s 26.”
26! I remark. “What a waste of 14 days!”
(Actually, I didn't say 14. It was barely 7AM and I had only had a few sips of coffee so simple math wasn’t happening. I think I said, “Well what a waste!)
What if you decided to be happy in the meantime?
Here’s your takeaway idea:
What if you decided to be happy in the meantime?
What might happen?
Why does this feel hard?
What’s my resistance really about?
But your wonderful wants can quickly become wasted time if you keep waiting to feel better someplace else.
Permission to feel good now is the foundational practice necessary for the kind of transformation you've been wanting all along.
PS: I bet my son enjoys himself at school today. Which highlights another important idea.
Sometimes we say what we say not because it’s true but because it’s the story we’re used to telling.
Pay attention to the words coming out of your mouth.
If you find yourself singing a song of “better somewhere else” well…..now you know what to do.
You’ll intervene on your own behalf by saying to yourself,
“Yes my dear, that might be true but it also might not and imagine what might be possible if you let yourself feel good right now.”
The pain that comes from thinking you’ve wasted your time doesn’t come from dreams unrealized. It comes from wishing that as you dreamt about tomorrow, you let yourself enjoy your life right now.
It's the fight to love ourselves and our life, no. matter. what. NOT the fight to obtain, achieve and accomplish that ensures none of it was wasted time..
xx Lori