Have a Good Day

“Find peace in the morning rush and you will have a good day”. 
~ Mike Dolan

Today, I am Grateful for…

A good night’s sleep.

Morning jam, morning biscuits.

Living in a place where it is not stressful to do shopping.

A refreshing walk in the rain.

Being surrounded by kind, thoughtful and open people.

A clean home.

Receiving a wonderful e-mail from a friend.

Laughter.

What are you grateful for today?

Wait, hold that thought. Go get a gorgeous notebook, some colourful pens and set aside ten minutes to write.

To write your daily gratitudes.

We all have things to be grateful for. But they often go unnoticed, overshadowed by all the negative things that happen in our day. If we start paying attention and appreciating all of the good things that happen to us – however small they may be – our vision of our daily life transforms. By recognising and focusing on the positive, we improve our mood, our health and our energy.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beady

Some days, we may only have one or two things to note in our gratitude journal; other days, we may fill two pages. But there is always something to be grateful for, even on the greyest of days.

So go on, start that gratitude journal.

I was inspired to start my own gratitude journal after reading SeaSweetie’s Pages.

Do Your Best Anyway

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

~  Mother Teresa

A Break is a Change of Activity

It’s that sort of day: a list of things to do and a mind/body/soul completely resistant on doing anything. You stand paralysed in the middle of the room, staring blankly at your ‘to do’ list. With a distracted mind and a tired body, your whole being rejects the idea of doing any of the tasks at hand. “No!” it screams “I do not want to sort out my bank statements. I do not want to call the phone company and I certainly do not want to fill out all those forms”. And that’s it; you’re on strike.

We all have days when we sigh and grumble getting out of bed, when every task seems like a chore and when we are so overwhelmed by banalities that they block us from getting anything done. Our head spins and our body freezes; the only thing we seem capable of doing at that moment is hiding under our bed covers. But stopping all activity at a moment like this is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. In order to get ourselves out of this rotten mood, we need to do something – anything – that does not require emotional or mental effort.

Don’t feel like sorting out your bank statements? Wash the dishes. Can’t face calling the phone company? Put up that book shelf. Don’t want to fill out those forms? Take the dog for a walk.

By doing something productive that requires no emotional or mental effort, we are making it easier for ourselves to tackle those tasks that we are reluctant on doing. We are distracting ourselves from the things that are blocking us, we are giving ourselves a break from negative thoughts and we even feel good about having done a useful activity. If, in these moments, we stop everything and sit on the couch feeling sorry for ourselves, we give ourselves even more reason for grief.

Yesterday, I froze up at the thought of spending my afternoon calling various companies, filling out forms and reading endless information about jobs and courses online. I was so overwhelmed by the things that I had to do, that I felt like jumping into bed and sleeping through everything. Instead, I put on my sandals and went to pick flowers for a hair mask in a nearby field. I then cooked a meal using a new recipe, and by the end of it all, I was feeling so happy and satisfied that I sat down to complete my other tasks with a smile on my face.

But be careful – distracting yourself with other, more menial, tasks is a solution for getting things done and not an excuse for putting things off. When you are overwhelmed – mentally, physically or emotionally – by your ‘to do’ list, taking a break and changing activity is refreshing and energising, but using menial tasks as an excuse to delay completing more important things is procrastination.

As my grandma always says “A break is a change of activity”.

If You Love It, Teach It!

“The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.”  ~ Author Unknown

The best teacher that I have ever had stood out from all the dozens of others by one simple thing: love. This teacher loved what she taught, she loved teaching and she loved her pupils. Every time I was in her class, I felt as if that hour with her was sacred. She treated every pupil as her own child, and taught us in a way that showed us that we were just as important to her as she was to us. She truly wanted to share her knowledge with us, and to make us discover the happiness that she herself experienced through this subject. Through her honesty, openness, attention and care she did more than teach – she inspired.

In current times, it is rare to find a teacher with all of the above qualities. I have come across teachers who taught simply to make money, or because they couldn’t find another job; I have known teachers who were unqualified and unmotivated, and those who simply did not care about their students. Jacques Barzun rightly said that “teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition”. The current focus on passing exams and getting the best grades has transformed learning from a process of discovery to a process of repetition, regurgitation and memorisation. Teachers are no longer valued as our guides to self-discovery, and they are no longer respected as professionals with a wealth of knowledge.

There is never a shortage of eager students looking for the perfect teacher (all of us would love to learn one thing or another), but unfortunately, there is a shortage of eager teachers looking for the perfect student. Why is that? Because we have come to believe that being a teacher means having a qualification or a post to confirm our abilities. In fact, there is a teacher in all of us: we all have something that we love and that we would love to pass on to others. Last week-end, I taught yoga to a friend. We did a ‘proper’ class, with postures, sequences and techniques, and both of us came away happy. I am not a yoga master, nor am I trained as a yoga teacher, but yoga is something that I love, and something that I would love to pass on to others, and therefore it was a great pleasure for me to spend an evening teaching it to someone who was curious and willing to learn.

We all know how much joy it brings us to share our passion with others, and I believe that one of the best ways to do this is by teaching. Whether you love literature, singing, playing on the piano, gardening, knitting, swimming, writing, playing chess…there is someone who would love to learn from you. Whether in a formal or informal class, paid or free, with friends or strangers, regularly or irregularly, to a group or to an individual, sharing what you love is a gift. Don’t let your talents and your passions go to waste – pass them on!

If you love it, teach it!