Looking through rose-tinted glasses

Do you ever get upset at the little misfortunes that accompany you during your work hours? By the end of the day do you feel like nothing works? You come home in a grumpy mood and fall asleep with the feeling of overwhelm.  Maybe after all you were just not cut out for this. This thought does not serve you well the next morning; you start your day with a suspicion that it won’t bring anything positive. I’m just guessing that on a day like this you’ll struggle with being productive trying to accomplish things… Well, this has certainly been the reality of my own life – until this week when I had an experience that I would like to share with you.

It was a weekend day, I got up feeling unwell.  The first thing I encountered was my 3-year-old son Thomas throwing a prolonged screaming fit because something didn’t go the way he liked. I’d strengthened myself with breakfast but soon after that went low on sugar, feeling tired from running around after my children, cleaning their potties, washing their hands, taking pyjamas off and putting fresh clothes on etc, etc.

For an outing we went to a forest near the town in which we live.  When we arrived Thomas had another crying fit. I took him for a little stroll along the river for him to calm down, and we picked some plants. When my husband saw them he was horrified because they might be poisonous, so I got worried and rushed to clean my son’s hands.

On the way back home, Leo, our youngest, fell asleep in the car, something I was not thrilled about because it was a late afternoon, too late for a nap. After such naps the boys stay up very late when both parents are too tired to enjoy it. We arrived home half past four and realised we forgot that someone was supposed to come during the day to look at the boiler which keeps switching itself off.  The weather is getting colder day by day. Not good.

After putting the children to bed, I sat down at the computer to write an e-mail to my accountability partners. We are a group of 7 women — we write each other every evening what we did today and what we plan to do tomorrow.  This helps us to be who we want to be and do what we want to do, not to live reactive but creative (as Christine Kane puts it). So I started by writing that today was a challenging day for me, but then for some reason I resisted going into details of what did not work. Instead I was compelled to focus on what did work. This is what I wrote:

We all slept in until late (9am), had a filling breakfast with porridge that after a little break was followed by toasts, bananas and canned pineapples. We packed a picnic and went to a forest with the whole family where we played with sticks and threw stones into a river. After we got back, all four of us had a long afternoon nap. When we got up I felt rested! We had a yummy dinner all together followed by the apple pie we made yesterday. We painted leaves collected today in the forest and pressed them into the paper making a postcard for grandpa. With Thomas we read book after book for a long time which seemed like more than an hour, enjoying it greatly. I saw the boys drifting off to sleep feeling completely at peace.

Does it appear like me actually having a nice day? Then how come I had just outlined a different not-so-nice story? Both stories are true! But in the second one I focused on positive things. After writing this I actually felt like I had a good day 🙂 What magic it was. Can you guess the rest? I had a good peaceful sleep, and woke up the next morning feeling optimistic and looking forward to my day. And I was very productive that day at work! 🙂

It is as if I looked at my day through the rose-tinted glasses. And although this expression does have negative emotions connected with it, I think “looking through such glasses” can be a very useful tool for creating a happier life, as long as you stay clear and aware. This simple tool is part of a much bigger concept of abundance mindset: “Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance” as Ekhart Tolle says in his book “A New Earth”, but that is already another story.

From now on I have a new practice to look at my day through the rose-tinted glasses, while staying clear and aware of the challenges, that can be dealt with in a constructive way.

So how was your day today? 🙂

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