Yesterday I had a Bad Day
Most days I’m in a calm, content state, but yesterday wasn’t one of those days. I got caught up in the emotions of family life.
It started when my husband demanded that my three sons (aged 14, 19 and 22) complete a huge project, to chop and shred the huge mountain of the overgrown garden hedge, which we had removed with a digger the day before. My husband then stormed off complaining that he had worked for 12 hours straight the day before, so why couldn’t his sons.
So then it was left to me. Now my expectations for the day had been very different. I had planned a relaxing day, a day off from my coaching business and a day off from the garden. In fact, I had planned a relaxing day with my husband to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
My sons’ expectations were also very different, I guess they were hoping to catch up with friends and play computer games.
So that’s how it started. I went to each son and explained clearly, that they needed to get outside and get the job done, as this was what their dad expected of them.
In the meantime, my husband went to complete a job in the garage, and I stewed in my annoyance whilst getting some other garden work done.
The boys began, whilst complaining bitterly at the unfairness and scale of the job. My husband and I clashed and no-one was having a pleasant day.
In this state, I started noticing how my children were stuck in the ‘outside-in’ misunderstanding, believing that their unhappiness amongst other things was coming from the huge pile of work to be done and from their little sister not helping.
I also felt angry and annoyed with my husband for having prevented me from having a relaxing day and having made me be ‘the bad guy’, with our children. The thing was I believed my feelings were coming from my husband, my children and from not being able to have the day I expected. But none of this was true.
The only thing my feelings were telling me about was my thought generated reality. In just an instant I could have woken up to the fact that nothing on the outside of me causes how I feel. There is always as Sydney Banks calls it, the “missing link”.
Moment to moment our senses receive information, what we can see, hear, touch, smell and taste. With all of this information, we create a moment to moment thought generated reality.
From being stuck in what life ‘should’ be like, and ‘blaming’ my experience on others, I could have woken to the beauty of the moment, the connection with my family, my children working together, for our health and the beauty of the garden. I could have seen that my husband was feeling tired, that my children were feeling overwhelmed.
But yesterday I had a negative view on life, I was experiencing what was true and adding a whole lot of my thinking as if I was looking through a pair of glasses that could only see the annoying things of life.
You’ve probably noticed this when you’re feeling annoyed that you can suddenly find a whole lot of stuff to be annoyed about. The next day, nothing changes but you’ve taken the ‘annoying’ glasses off and everything is ok again. This shows it can’t be the stuff, but how you’re viewing or experiencing it.
Your natural state is a sense of peace, joy and happiness. From this space, you feel connected with those around you, and you have access to your inner wisdom to respond in a life-enhancing way.
At any moment you can wake up and find yourself in this space when you realise that your feelings only ever point to your thoughts in the moment and the kind of glasses that you have on right now.
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