My Inspiration: I was reading a post on the DailyZen, and it inspired me to write this. If you go read the article, you’ll see that it’s similar to this one, but the focus is a little more on work-related success (or at least it seemed that way to me).
Enjoy!
————————————————-
Ever have a hard time falling asleep at night because you’re thinking about all the things you need to do the next day or you’re worried about something that’s coming up, say, making it to the end of the month before you get to the end of the money?
There’s no way you’re going to get any sleep when you find yourself laying on your pillow, and your mind is racing. So, take a deep breath (or 2 or 3) and ask yourself these questions:
1. What are the things that made me smile today?
It could be that someone smiled at you and said “good morning!”. Maybe someone held the elevator for you, or the bus driver waited for you while you ran to the bus stop. Maybe you smiled when you came home after work and your dog was right there waiting for you, wagging his tail because no matter how long you’re away, he’s always super excited to see you. Just think about as many things that made you smile as possible, and think about how they made you feel. Try to reach for that feeling again as you remember these things.
2. What did I do today that made someone else smile?
Same question as above, only reversed. Ok so you’re not going to sit at a door and act all excited when someone walks through it; but think about all the moments that you made someone else smile today. Even better, think about a time when someone said “Thank you” to you. If you live in Canada, like me, that shouldn’t be too hard. We say Thank You all the time! 🙂 We feel good when we do things for other people, and often we don’t give ourselves enough credit for the small things we do that make people happy.
Again, try to remember each detail, and remember the feeling you felt when you made that person smile.
3. What am I grateful for, today?
Appreciation is something that we don’t do nearly enough. If you’ve ever travelled to other countries, especially ones where the population struggles in areas that are easy for you where you live, or that are not even an issue (ex. clean water and access to healthy foods), then think about these things now and appreciate them.
Maybe you start by appreciating the fact that you can pay for the Internet that lets you come to this blog and read this post. Or even more general than that: that this country offers the technology at a price that makes it readily available to just about anyone. Maybe you can appreciate that you have a job (never mind whether you like your job or not) that provides you with sufficient income, and that this income lets you have a comfortable home that is in good living condition. Maybe you can appreciate that your health is in relatively good condition (never mind the occasional cold); that you don’t have to spend every day or every week in the hospital with some debilitating condition. Maybe you can appreciate the fact that your body is well enough to let you walk outside and enjoy the beautiful weather.
I’ve found that when we start with general statements of appreciation like those I suggested above, other more specific thoughts of appreciation start to follow. Then, I just keep following the thoughts as far as they take me, until I feel really nice and content. Then, your mind is calm and at peace, and ready for sleep.
I would encourage you to not just ask yourself these questions when you can’t sleep at night, but to make a habit of doing it every night. When you do it several nights in a row, you will find that you start to wake up in a better mood, and you might even start to notice things throughout the day that make you smile or feel good even BEFORE you do the exercise at night.
Adding Momentum
I’ve heard and read endlessly that you should meditate first thing in the morning, to set up your day for success and overall happiness. I know that when I do this (usually on weekends when I’m alone), I do reap the benefits throughout my day. But, with a full time 9-5 desk job, and a 5-year old that needs to get to school, I find my mornings chaotic and I just can’t get up early enough to really give myself the time to get a good meditation in the books. That’s just me, and it is my current situation. I’m NOT a morning person and try though I might to get up at 5am to do it, my body just won’t follow. I’m one of those weird people that needs 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night in order to even function in the morning. But I do try to get a short (20-30 minutes) meditation in around lunch time (though lately, I’ve been writing blog posts instead). I find that it helps me re-calibrate my day and have a smoother afternoon so that I don’t crash so hard around 3pm like we typically do.
So, to build on the momentum of the work I’ve done the night before, when I get up and start going through my morning routine, I listen to some positive audios from either YouTube or one of the Abraham workshops that I get monthly. Even though I can’t fully focus on every word that is being said, some of the content is getting through and it keeps my mind focused on a positive wavelength while I’m putting on my makeup or making lunches. If I need to keep the noise levels low, then I try to remember the things I focused on before going to bed the night before. I pick up the positive momentum from there, and work to move it forward. The easiest quote I start with is:
Today, no matter where I go, no matter what I do, no matter who I’m doing it with, it is my dominant intent to look for good feeling things
By repeating this sentence to yourself over and over for days on end, it starts becoming part of your regular thought pattern and it starts to affect your behaviour on a daily basis. Did you know that a belief is only a thought that you keep thinking? More on that in another post.
You see, by focusing on positive things before going to sleep, you’ve focused your mind into a positive vibration, which enhances your chances of waking up in a positive vibration the next day. But in order to build on that, you need to pick up the positive thoughts where you left them the night before, and build on them. So whether you listen to some positive audios, or deliberately think about positive things, or even just put on some music that makes you feel good, do whatever you need to do to help yourself feel good right as you begin your day. Soon, you’ll start to notice that your days are getting more and more pleasant, without anything seemingly having changed.
Give my questions a try for a few days and let me know what your results were!
If you want more tricks on how to build positive momentum of thoughts, drop me a line and I’ll write a blog post to give you a few to work with!
Sleep well tonight.
– Mel