I woke up at 6:00 am again. This is a very new thing for me, and I can’t 100% say how I feel about it. Mind you, I didn’t roll out of bed for another 30 minutes, but the point is that I was awake. At six in the morning!

All because my happy butt knows I now have two jobs and I can’t afford to let one slack. Thank the Lord for coffee!

You see, yesterday was one of those days at my regular job. Not a bad day, there wasn’t anything in particular that I could complain about. But as my day continued, my mood decreased. I’m finding that I am much more susceptible to other’s moods than I realized. Their bitterness or anger or discouragement can really affect me which I am growing to despise. I want to be a sounding board for my friends, I want them to be able to talk to me but trying to lift other’s moods is draining!

Unfortunately, I also know that I was very much that person for my friends not that long ago. I went through a rough patch at work for a few months at the first of the year. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but really, even now I shudder to think of my ugly vibes. I am normally a positive person but I was positively negative and apathetic. It made my heart feel awful. There’s no better way to word it, I was dark and twisty all over again with a mean streak to boot.

Now that I have emerged back into the sunshine, I am finding some of my work friends in that same place. I keep searching my memories to see if I can pinpoint what helped me to emerge from the shadows… but I don’t know if I can suggest what worked for me.

I don’t know if fasting is the right word for what I did, but at the time I called it a “Hard Reset” of my soul. I stopped watching TV (easy for me), I only read Christian books and my Bible (BIG STRUGGLE) and only listed to non-secular music (gasp!) as well as old sermons from my church.

HARD RESET.

All of this sounds super “Godly” and I want to stop you from thinking this is a ‘Holier Than Thou’ moment because let me tell you how much my heart did NOT want to do this. I did not do this gracefully. I did not do this well, nor did I really tell anyone until after the reset really started to help. I slowly but surely found my footing again. I limited my readmission into the world to a very slow crawl because I was terrified I would end up right back into that dark state and have to start over again (NO NO NO PLEASE NO)! That’s how poorly I was feeling. I really hate the idea of ending up there again.

Therefore, I sat in my car driving home from spewing my gross feelings on my poor work partner Val and I was just… sick with myself. Lucky for me, Val’s a fantastic listener and very wise. She has totally earned her nickname as “The Witch Doctor” because of her uncanny ability to predict outcomes and her unusual advice regarding your vibes/aura. She instructed me to burn sage (I’m Native American so I know all about the powers of sage), to do some yoga or whatever I needed to get back in alignment with myself.

So what did I do?

I put on my worship playlist, started my diffuser with sage in my bedroom then poured a glass of wine, sat in my hammock and began reading my new info for my new stylist job at Stitch Fix. And I felt the stress melt away. I just needed to stop myself long enough to breathe and get perspective back.

Well played Witch Doctor.

I’m going to tell you that we all have different beliefs. I’m not shy about my faith. And perhaps Zen isn’t a word you find in the Bible, but meditate is… well who knows what words we can discover if we practice translating every word from every language and find their meaning… that’s a rant for another day.

The point is, no matter what your spiritual beliefs, very few religions or non-religions would tell you that balance is bad. We all need it. We need to ground ourselves and take slow, deep breathes and to let the stress of this world flow away from us. We all need PEACE.

SO that’s my challenge for today. Find your Zen or something like it. When the world starts to pull you under, breathe. It happens to all of us. You have to decide what you will allow to continue inside of your heart and stop allowing others to make those choices for you.

And for the love of all, please remind me to do the same!

Always,

Manic