Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday, despite snap earlier, I fell asleep by 8pm.

This morning I woke feeling empty, so I took inspiration from Pam Grout’s Thank and Grow Rich. I did nothing except what would make me happy.

At first I was unable to think of anything. I couldn’t focus on writing, reading. Even eating was difficult. More than two or three spoonfuls and I couldn’t bothered. Breakfast took a while.

Slowly the apathy faded. Allowing myself to do whatever includes doing nothing. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t mind eating a bit more. I had an apple. Later on I wanted to go for a walk, so I did. The day has continued this way. Doing what I feel like doing when I felt like doing it.

Turns out that listening to iPlayer radio while doing dishes and making tomato sauce were things I felt like doing. Following my wants didn’t mean nothing got done, but it did mean that I enjoyed more of today than I have most days recently.

If you can spend time doing what you want to do, I’d love to hear about it.

Back online

Nothing happens for no reason; being forced offline helped me realise that I have been putting too much pressure on myself to add to this blog every day. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t post. I began this blog to keep track of this year. It’s a way of keeping myself on track with the challenge of attempting to to do as many activities as I can from The best year of your life. That’s all. By posting online I am more likely to keep going, but it’s not worth it if I stress over it.

I have realised it’s okay to miss a day here and there. I have also realised that it’s okay not do do an activity every day. This week did I have been outside my comfort zone in other ways, taking part in events in the Oxford International Women’s Festival, so I have done fewer activities anyway.

I can blog about three though.

First, this week’s give activity was to

raise a late night smile by putting a chocolate on everyone’s pillow tonight and turning down the covers.

Living alone this isn’t an option, and I’ve already done a Give activity anyway, but I’d thought I’d post it in case anyone else wants to do this (it’s Mother’s Day in the Uk, so you could try that)

This week’s Expand activity is to begin to understand the connection between mind and body.

Today, begin to expand your understanding of the relationship between mind and body by getting hold of Louise Hay’s groundbreaking Heal Your Body book which offers a way of understanding certain ailments, aches and pains as they may relate to what’s going on with the rest of our lives.

I can recommend the book; I have had it for years. I keep this copy in my desk for easy reference, and also have a copy of You Can Heal Your Life which has the blue book information in the back.

Finally,

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-Albert Einstein

Today believe in miracles, expect miracles and be on the lookout for miracles.

I’ve been doing this more since reading Pam Grout’s Thank and Grow Rich. It’s a wonderful habit to cultivate. For me life is just much richer since I began looking for miracles.

One minor miracle, though it didn’t seem like it at the time, was losing internet access. I has made me appreciate the Internet, but also rethink how I use it, and what I want to use it for. Looking back at this week, I like the blog posts I did, especially looking at the sky. But I also acknowledge the unintentional stress I have put on myself to post here. It’s a good thing to realise. I hope I don’t need a repeat of the experience to learn the lesson 😃

Quick gratitude

A quick post before bed. Today’s (well, yesterday’s) activity was writing a thank you card. Perfect. After finishing Thank and Grow Rich I was planning to do this anyway. I made some thank you cards earlier today:

Edit: The rest of this post is an edit because instead of pressing “insert picture” I pressed “Publish”. This mistake shows how tired I am. I have a full week ahead. I need to get to be so I cannot write much more. I made the cards, but haven’t actually written one yet. Tomorrow. Also tomorrow I will look back at this blogging week.

One thing I did do today was finish off my seasonal vegetables (see 30th Oct) this was the result: Celeriac and beetroot gratin

Gratitude

Friday’s activity involves gratitude. I practice gratitude actively. By that I mean I thank everything. I started listing things I was grateful for ages ago. For a while I wrote down lists of things I wasn’t grateful for, and some of them I became grateful for. An example: the curtain on the back door of my house. Day after day I would include it in my list, hanging there, awkward to pull across, keeping the room in shade… gradually I began appreciating the pattern on it, and then there was heatwave and the room was gloriously cool – because of the curtain.

Earlier this year I heard an interview with Pam Grout about her book Thank and Grow Rich as part of the Hay House World Summit. In July I found a copy in the library. I renewed it twice! Every morning I wake and think to myself

Something amazingly magical is going to happen to me today. Thank you thank you thank you.

Then I write down three blessings from the previous day. I bought myself a diary to write the blessings in and record the amazingly magical things that happen. I have been doing this since July 31st and haven’t missed a day. The first blessing written down reads

The rain I got caught in yesterday was warm, and the view of Christ Church was lovely.

Some blessings and magical happenings were amazing at 5e time, others may seem more down to earth (“downloaded story to Big Finish app first go” – I was having difficulties with the app at the time – or “the reflection of water on the table when I filled the glass” But they have become moments of magic, because now I look for the magical in the every day like never before. After a while I began to find myself noticing things to be thankful for all the time. Then I began feeling gratitude for things I would never have thought to before – Barking next door don’t annoy me as much once I find myself thinking

Thank you for the dogs in my life

Even with this head cold, I discovered I was thinking

Thank you for this opportunity to rest

I am finding it much easier to be inside my head when I am focusing on the good things rather than the bad. There’s always something good, if you look.

Doing the “daily download” from week 2 isn’t a daily activity. But I try and do it once a week (I’ll probably do it tonight) and the benefits of gratitude as quoted in the activity are things I know to be true because I have experienced them first hand

…when we’re feeling positive, our energy is high and flowing out into the world,opening the way for good things to flow back to us: the more grateful we are, the more we seem to have to be thankful for.

The activity is

From today onwards, try making gratitude part of your daily routine

Well, it already is part of mine – even waiting for buses, I list (silently) things I am grateful for.

Here’s a list of 10 things I am grateful for – in whatever order they occur to me

1. Internet access
2. Clean tap water
3. Asthma medication
4. The app that lets me post this blog from my tablet
5. My sofa
6. Having my own front door that I can shut against the world
7. Getting lost in a good book
8. The pied wagtails I saw earlier today
9. The grey squirrel
10. My oracle cards

Expand; Receive; Connect

This was supposed to have been posted Friday 13th October. I’m gussing it’s the date, some sort of gremlin. I have posted since and that’s turned up on my page so it’s not a cache gremlin. So…third time lucky.

Yesterday’s challenge: sleep on the other side of the bed. There’s so many boxes piled between the bed and the window that I have to climb over from my usual side to get to the “wrong” side, so no fear of “getting out on the wrong side of bed”. I was always aware that the side of the bed was on the wrong side. It’s not like when I fall asleep with my feet on the pillow and feel disoriented when I wake up. The main difference was getting out in the dark and being aware of how wide the mattress is.

The book says this will give me

The chance to wake up with a very slightly altered view.

I woke before dawn (it is Autumn) plus I am short sighted, so it wasn’t the view I noticed this morning. More having to move further to reach the light switch and then being half in shadow as I wrote my morning pages.

Today’s challenge (maybe I should say “prompt”. That sounds less like something to dread) is to listen to a favourite piece of music before I do anything else. I’d already been awake for 2 hours by the time I read this. I put on my favourite piece of relaxing music straight away, but it is going against the idea of seeing if starting the day with something you love makes a difference to the day – so I will try it tomorrow.

Which brings me onto the third part of the title of this post. Tomorrow’s prompt, which I’ll do today, then blog about – I think better with a pen in my hand.

Connect starts with the beginning of a quote by Marianne Williamson. I’m putting the full quote below.

The prompt asks if I’m ready to let my light shine. YES. That’s why I’m doing this blog

Marianne Williamson quote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

This reminds me of what I read earlier today in Pam Grout’s Thank and Grow Rich:

Remember, if you do what makes you happy, it gives the rest of us permission to be happy

I am big on synchronicity. To me it’s like Spirit saying hello. Thank You Spirit! (I am also big on gratitude – and life has improved even more since finding Thank and Grow Rich)