THE BEST RELAXATION

     Some days I feel perky, positively bright eyed and bushy tailed, and some days I feel road weary. And my most relaxing time is not on the weekends, or on vacation, but after a day of work when I have put in my time and put forth my effort and given my best.
     This fact makes late afternoons and evenings beautiful and sweet to me. I like mornings too, but for a different reason. They are fresh and hopeful and all possibility. But the end of the workday is like a song of gratitude. It's labor expended and energy spent: soft, heavy, tired, and worn- sleepy in the muscles but satisfied, and full to brimming in my heart.

Work affords me the best relaxation I know. There is nothing like the feeling of having put in a good day.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

     It's exhausting to be self-conscious, to feel uncomfortable in what we are wearing, or out of place inside our own skins. It is a test of spiritual evolution to be aware of such discomfort and then find a way to rise above it; to be secure in our inherent value, and stable no matter the clothes and no matter our awkwardness, and no matter our less than perfect presentation to the world. We worry what others will think, but the only opinion that really makes the difference in the end is our own.

I accept myself as I am and carry my insecurities with grace and humor and a certain amount of style.

BOUNDARIES

     Boundaries are like fences and they have to be kept clear, moved when necessary, checked after storms, and readily maintained. They require a certain amount of care and attention, and gates for passage in and out. We are not meant to live hidden behind a fortress or completely exposed. We set posts and hang boards to protect ourselves, but we can see through them, and move through them if need be.
     The thing we must learn to do is say no when we mean no and yes when we mean yes and stand firm and without guilt in the steady conviction of our internal integrity and our sense of what's right.  We need to be honest with ourselves and with the world about what suits us and what does not.

I set appropriate boundaries but do not lock myself rigidly behind them. I allow for the flowing currents of life.

BEING FORGIVING

     I find it far more satisfying to forgive others than to punish them, even if they are unkind. We are all wrong at times, and hurt at times, and able to be less than thoughtful. We are impatient, bitter, cruel, and manipulative in varying degrees, and none of us perfectly pure.
     So let's not be unforgiving. Let's give others a break even if they do not give us one. Let's be the bigger person. As many times as it takes, let's learn to let it go.

I refrain from punishing others. I am allowing and forgiving.

EVERYTHING IS A PROCESS

     I seem to believe that limits can be established in a once and for all kind of way, but the truth is that setting boundaries,  like all things, requires daily care and occasional revision. I think in absolutes. I arrive impulsively at a catastrophic decision point: something big and definitive has to be done- something major- something dramatic...
     But even when major change is in order, it doesn't happen in one fell swoop. It's a bit at a time and  a slow steady adjustment to the new perspective, the new behavior, and the new way of life. I can't impose my absolutes on others, and I can't successfully impose them on myself. Everything is process and evolution. Even cutting ties that bind requires a period of loss, adjustment, and recovery.

I stop trying to make people and situations all one thing or another. I accept change in behavior and habits as a slow process.

PATIENCE AND FAITH

     I have a tendency towards impatience. I want what I want when I want it and experience waiting as a kind of punishment and torture. I think I have to earn things, so if I'm not getting what I'm after, I must be doing something wrong. Working harder is my solution to everything, but it's not always the solution.
     Sometimes the very thing I need to do is stop working and sit quietly, gathering my peace within, allowing the forces that be to take over. Sometimes the absolutely best thing I can do to keep the current moving in my life is to get out of the way.

I am willing to stop pushing and wait for things to come.

PARADOX

   I have mixed feelings about most things. My faith is peppered with doubt, my love with distaste, my hope with fear. I am excited in some ways and exhausted in others. I am young and old, wise and foolish, strong as an ox, and fragile as a butterfly.
     What is new and fresh becomes stale. What is foreign becomes familiar, and what is big becomes small. We are expansion and reduction. We are all things: paradoxical at every turn.

Everything in life is a mix of this and that, including me. I am at ease with the tensions of my life.