Yesterday morning I awoke with a foreboding feeling and the swirling storm of negative thoughts about my day. I can’t tell you why that happened; according to my Fitbit I had a good sleep. I didn’t have bad dreams. I had a good day on Monday, removing the idea of a residual mood from the previous day.
Yesterday was an okay day. It wasn’t bad, but before bed I was really exhausted and I felt like an emotional wreck. Partly, it was self inflicted; I had listened to a podcast while making supper, on child sex-trafficking School of Greatness). I am pretty sensitive to difficult topics so often avoid them, but some things are really important. I then watched an unrelated video while doing dishes, and was feeling like I am not measuring up. My evening mood was likely due to my tiredness and a culmination of my day’s activities, which weren’t negative in themselves just a day.
I went to bed early. I was so tired; there is really no use staying up when you aren’t being productive. I slept really solid and had a dream that I remembered when I awoke 4 hours later to use the bathroom. It was a vacation dream, with some upset I was managing. I slept a bit restless the next few hours with innocuous dreams. I woke up early this morning.
I also woke up with the word ‘Believe’ in my head. It appeared just as I awoke and was on repeat like an earworm. I didn’t have a foreboding feeling about my day. I didn’t have a tumult of negative thoughts appearing from nowhere. I just had ‘Believe’ on repeat.
What is it that has one waking on the wrong side of the bed one morning and the next having positivity. Having low energy and challenging thoughts before bed last night, one would think the foreboding feelings would have appeared this morning. Having had a goal accomplished day on Monday, and a great discussion with my accountability partner that evening, should have had me set up for a positive mindset Tuesday morning. The good sleep (but not oversleep) should have been a bonus. And yet, the opposite expectation happened each morning (in reflecting afterwards).
What a better morning it was. It’s not even that I felt better physically. Even with my coffee, I felt somewhat tired, the same as yesterday really. I started each morning exactly the same, with my mediation and reading. These things took me from my negative feelings yesterday morning and elevated my ‘believe’ for today. And just to connect the dots more, just to drive ‘Believe’ home in my mind, my daily reading in The Maxwell Daily Reader is titled: Belief Determines Expectations. “Your beliefs control everything you do.”
Last night I fell asleep almost instantly, so there was no thinking before slumber. I have in the past (which I learned from something I read) to have a Most Important Question (MIQ) to ask myself when falling asleep, to have the answer present itself sometime in the night or next day. That backfired a couple weeks ago when the answer came 20 seconds after asking it, and I was too excited by the answer to sleep. Most of the time, it works as intended and sometime in the night or next day the answer comes in one form or another.
So, it occurred to me that perhaps when I don’t have a MIQ I may just give myself a word; good and positive word that will be an earworm through the night and hopefully still be there in the morning. I feel like that might work. I will be trying it.
Some other things that may help people wake up on the right side of the bed.
- Get enough sleep: It is difficult to feel good when you are tired. Sleep is essential in helping us feel good. How we feel physically affects how we feel emotionally and contributes to mindset.
- Exercise: I feel much better when I am getting enough exercise. Daily movement, getting the heart rate up, and regularly exercising contributes to overall health and feeling good.
- Eat well: Sometimes the foods we eat, the amount, as well as the time (before bed) we eat can cause us to feel more tired or stressed in the morning. Eating well fuels us and influences our energy.
- Don’t over schedule: If the day feels full with so many things on the docket, it is easy to wake up feeling the weight of the world on one’s shoulders. Choose one thing that you will get done the next day. Having a list of many things is a great way to get them out of your head, but prioritize and have a goal of 1-3 things. If you do more than that from your list you will feel more accomplished in your day than if you had a goal to get 10 items done and only did the three most important. Be realistic on what you can get done- preaching to myself on that last point.
- Have something enjoyable in the day to look forward to: Even if your day is full of challenges and to-do’s, having something to look forward to can help mitigate the foreboding feelings.
If you do wake up with the foreboding feeling and the thoughts of not wanting to do the day, take a few minutes to meditate or read something positive. Listen to a positive podcast or e-book while you get ready in the morning or on your commute. The sooner you replace the negative thoughts the better.
Today was no better or worse than yesterday, as far as what I accomplished and how I felt. This morning though, was a much better way to wake up. I am aiming high, going to try the MIW (most important word) technique for a couple weeks. What about you; do you have things that help you not wake up with that foreboding feeling? When you do, do you have ways to make those negative thoughts go away quickly?
A New Dawn 