my morning coffee spot and new wind chime
I went out yesterday evening to shut my cars windows before it rained. The sweet guy who mows our lawn had just left and as I walked around the back of my car I noticed that the rear window was shattered. A stone must have flown up from our driveway and hit it. I am sure that he didn’t notice it as he zipped around on his riding mower, with his protective headset on.
I felt stunned and thought, “I should do something, but I am not sure what that is!” It was 6 pm and too late to call for an appointment to get it fixed. I decided to cover it with a blue tarp and went back inside. I sat down to read and opened to the words, “Heaven on earth is happening simultaneously with the way our lives are showing up, right now in this moment. The trick is to be able to access this coexisting state, day in, day out, moment by moment, not just when in pleasant, ideal circumstances.”
I was going to take a picture of my car to post with this blog and then thought, “So many wonderful things happened yesterday, why would I choose the one thing that felt not great to capture forever and show to the world?” We do this sometimes. We “showcase” our pain/drama/chaos because it makes captivating reading, telling. It also becomes a way of life, and leads to a very emotionally rough ride.
As I repeated to myself, “This is not a big deal, the solution will be perfect”, and kept saying these words to myself, my emotions calmed down too and I started to feel the way that I wanted to feel instead of letting my thoughts/feelings take me on a wild ride and leave me exhausted and depleted at the end (still with a broken windshield that had to be taken care of today). It has taken me many years to realize that I can choose how to think about anything.
I ordered the windchime, in the picture above, last week and it came yesterday too. It is really magnificent. Yesterday was a great day. Today is a great day.
“A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances” James Allen (1864-1912) from the book, As A Man Thinketh (a great little book by the way!)
