One of 'those' days?

Do you ever wake up and feel like you're in 'one of those moods'?  You know the one; where everything seems like hard work, you just know you're about to have a Bad Day.  Have you ever thought about just observing those thoughts and feelings rather than taking them as truth?

 I woke up in one of those moods today; I felt lethargic and incapable.  Even getting out of bed seemed like a lot of trouble.  Here's what my thought processes were like:

"I've got such a lot to do today, but I feel soooo tired, I just won't be able to get it all done." ..."Maybe I'm ill?"... "Sometimes we just need to write off the day and not worry about it, we're not robots after all.".... "No-one can be happy and full of energy all the time."

Sound familiar?

Can you see what I was doing? I was mentally programming myself for an ineffective day and I wasn't even that aware I was doing it because I was so sucked into my own story!  I was justifying the fact that I was letting myself off the hook by making sweeping assumptions that I could be ill, and making generalisations about people. Now you may have guessed that I'm not feeling that way anymore, otherwise I probably wouldn't be writing this.  So what happened to break the pattern?

I decided to be the observer of my own thoughts. I paid attention to the language I was using in my head and to the pictures I was creating. I also paid attention to where in my body I was feeling the sense of lethargy (in my head, stomach and chest area).  I decided not to judge the feelings and thoughts, but not to let them be my master either. I was going to carry on as normal and just notice what I noticed.

So now it's lunchtime and I feel great. In fact I feel like laughing as I write this because I'm remembering how rotten I felt earlier and how I could have let that be my 'truth' for the day.  So, how are you feeling? What story are you telling yourself today?  If it isn't the one you want to hear you can always send it some love and start to tell yourself a different one.

Have a brilliant day, whatever you decide to do with it!

With love, Lisa xx
PS If you're thinking that some of my thoughts were 'true' and reasonable, it may be worth paying close attention to the stories you tell yourself and the language you use.