I used to cuss first thing In the morning.
The level of dread I carried into each day was what kept me up at night knowing that tomorrow would too need to be faced. This was a vicious cycle.
I don’t know when exactly it changed, but I know it took these acknowledgements and steps:
1. I realized it was a bad thing. You’re off to a rough start right when the first thing out of your mouth in the morning is “for fuck sakes”.
2. I had reasons to feel that way.
3. It would be the organizing and understanding of these reasons that would allow me to tackle them appropriately.
4. ACTION was the only way forward.
5. Gratitude would see what “was” rather than what “wasn’t”.
6. Compassion allowed me the grace to stumble in my efforts where I didn’t need to be hard on myself and therefore against myself. Instead, I needed to be with myself.
Today, I’m able to sleep given the creation of my own excitement for each tomorrow. ☀️
The above is the caption to an Instagram Reel I posted recently.
In this blog post, I want to highlight step number 3 as I think this is the barrier between problem and solution we fail to cross. I believe we often know we need to organize ourselves and take action, but get hung up at the "how". Acknowledging that this isn't easy, I'm going to take you on the process I went down the time I realized I needed to change my attitude towards how I start my day.
Once we become aware things could be better, I have found the next steps should be to ask questions. The catch is, there are good questions and bad questions, and we don’t know which questions are helpful until we go through the Q&A process. Asking questions is always the path forward - whether it be “how the hell do I write this blog post?” or “how do I stop cussing first thing in the morning?”.
The process is somewhat like the scene from the movie "iRobot" where Will Smith's character is questioning a hologram of the doctor who has died.
Frustrated, Smith asks a series of questions, a couple of different times throughout his investigation. When asked a question he cannot answer, the hologram responds: "I'm sorry, my responses are limited." When asked a question of which the answer will help Smith, he responds "that detective is the right question." This leads Smith towards understanding what he must do. Smith’s search for truth sees him ask many questions -- only some of which render useful responses.
In the case of this blog, I am going to elaborate on my Instagram post to walk you through the exercise I used to pivot away from cussing in the morning.
So here I am: teaching the “discovery process” or process of “self reflection” and what can come of asking oneself questions. The ability or willingness to do so can allow us to make adjustments in our path forward. This is not easy stuff -- we have many reasons to answer our own questions in a way that keeps us the same and therefore to keep us safe and comfortable in our ways that are familiar to us. Oddly enough: we often find ourselves feeling saf