Heel Click (Photo credit: jonkriz)
You can’t help but notice happy people. They waltz down the street with a smile on their dial and a bounce in their step. I love waking up as one of these people. It is wonderful when feeling happy is effortless. When it doesn’t matter which side of the bed your feet land on because you are shimmying all the way to the kitchen anyway. When the coffee is just for pure enjoyment without the added flavours of necessity, survival and kick start. Those effortlessly happy days feel like a picture perfect, cracking day followings weeks of rain. I would go so far as to say, those days remind you of life itself.
So what to do on the other days. The ones preceding that cracking picture perfect day. The ones where you just want to hide under the doona a little longer……say till about 5pm. It’s okay to have shitty days. Everyone has them. What’s not okay is to let your shit pit overflow into the lives of everyone around you. That makes you an energetic leech. It doesn’t fix the problem when you spread your crud around, it just makes their day shit too. So, if you’re like me, somewhat of a monkey swinging between the Poor Me and Yippee trees, you need to have a few strategies.
My favourite strategy is actually a recipe, but not a food recipe. While I agree that triple-choc-whatever-you-can-lay-your-hands-on is most definitely a strategy, I find the results are short lived. I need something a little longer term. My recipe is a very personal recipe. A list of all the ingredients that make up my life when I’m in a good place. The result of lots of observation of myself, noting what I am doing when I’m in the Yippee tree and what I’m not doing when I’m in the Poor Me tree. I call it my RECIPE FOR A HAPPY KASMIN (genius title I know) and it currently looks like this……..
Bed early, up early: Getting up when I have to is existing. Getting up when I choose to is living. By choosing to get up earlier brekky is ready, school lunch is done, uniforms are ready, I can have a shower (BY MYSELF!!) and sometimes I even get my hair brushed. I can wake Master H in a good mood instead of starting the day with “SHIT, quick, get up!”
Water: I’ve noticed that when I’m thirsty I feel tired, my brain feels foggy, my skin feels yukky and I spend the day at the fridge door.
Writing: Whether it be journalling, writing blogs, or just writing a list of what I want to do that day/week/month. I like to do it, I need to do it. It gets it out of my head.
Reading: I have a few on the go so that I can read what I’m in the mood for at the time. Nothing better than delving in to someone elses world, real or not, or finding a book that opens your mind just a little bit more. Real books by the way, you can’t smell an e-book.
Time to self: I can hear every mother going YES! Those rare nights when both kids are asleep before I am and I can sit with a cup of tea are bliss. I can feel myself getting excited thinking about it. I still fist pump every time Master W goes to sleep just so I can do things with two hands. When husband is home and takes over kid duties I waste the first hour of ‘me time’ like an excited puppy going in circles not knowing what to do first.
Barbie time: I don’t care who you are, it is hard to feel great with an unintentional afro or fry-an-egg oily hair. It’s more than hard to feel dead sexy when the hairs on your legs are gripping the inside of your jeans that you’ve worn in an attempt to hide them. Yes, a mono-brow brings attention to your eyes, but not in a good way. No, you are not smoking in those grandma jocks. Surprisingly, the more you let it go, the less the care factor gets. Bad, bad, bad. The start of a slippery slope into trackpants and thongs in the school yard. Make an effort. Get out of your flannies and make an appt with your beauty friends, or at least your tweezers. Repeat after me, I am worth two eyebrows.
Exercise: No explanation needed really. It feels good. Do it and everything else falls into place.
So, that’s my recipe. I’ve fine tuned it over the years and it lives centre stage on my clarity board. Simplicity is key. Don’t make it twenty points long because you’re going to be looking at this from the pit and it needs to seem achievable, not like another list of failures.
I would love to hear what you have put in your recipes. If you don’t want to share publicly, it would make my day if you emailed me instead 🙂
avagreatone
The not quite free spirit 