8 Powerful Words to Shift Your Day

The alarm drums loudly and I awaken immediately to feel a sense of dread bubbling up in my spirit. With my first awareness of breath, I let out a heavy sigh and roll over for another 10 minutes. The cycle is the same each and every week as if I’m living the line from one of my favorite movies (Kate & Leopold), “I don’t want it to be Sunday…Sunday is the day before the day I work, so it gets poisoned.

Sunday’s have a sort of heaviness to them. For me, they signal an end to losing track of time and living the weekend on a whim. As much as I love my job, it’s difficult to not let Monday creep into Sunday.

Maybe you feel the same.

It’s no fun to let tomorrow rob us of all that’s waiting for us to experience today.

A few years ago I decided I didn’t want to keep feeling this way. I definitely didn’t want to feel the pulse of dread pressing into my Sundays, and it wasn’t enough to just wish the feeling away.

Our thoughts create our feelings, so I began the process of managing my mind around Mondays.

My thoughts weren’t particularly dark or depressing, but they were a constant interruption. As I began to list them I realized how much of a roadblock they were to living in and from the present.

Feeling the need to anticipate potential problems in my week robbed me of relaxing into the peace awaiting me in my present moment.
Attempting to prepare myself mentally to be enough for what awaited me was hindering me from staying grounded in my present “enoughness”.
Allowing a sense of dread stifled a sense of well-being.
Thanklessness for tomorrow blocked any gratitude for today.

Tracking and listing our thoughts is a great way to get in touch with what we are feeling because once we know how our thoughts are impacting how we feel, it’s so much easier to make a shift.

One of the most powerful shifts we can make for tomorrow is to stay grounded in the presence of today.

Then it became clear what I was sacrificing by not managing my brain around Mondays, it became equally clear how to change my thought of “I don’t want it to be Sunday.”

The thought that came to me isn’t profound, but it is powerful.

Today is the best day of my life.

What a difference a thought makes!

Those words feel wonderful to me. They feel so much better than, “I don’t want it to be Sunday.”

They bring a lightness to my shoulders as I let them drop into the space of now. My body releases tension as I fully exhale the need to anticipate. A deep yawn signals the thought is taking root, and my posture becomes relaxed. The fog created by thoughts of tomorrow clears, and I feel myself come back to the timelessness today holds.

How do these words resonate with you?

Today is all we have. It’s a gift we’re given to shift us into the presence of joy, peace and contentment.

Even when today holds its own challenges, we are so much more equipped to face them by shifting our attention fully in the present.

So many shifts await us by living into the presence of today and we stand to improve our quality of life overall by leaning into them an invitation to experience a fresh perspective

an opportunity to love with greater urgency
the chance to begin again
an opportunity to forgive today
a call to release regret and inhabit contentment
the sacrificing of control for inner peace
a silencing of procrastination because now is all we have
an abundance mindset grown by from moments of joy realized

Tomorrow may never come, though most of us live like it will.

Let’s grab hold of today in a way that captures joy for longer than a minute by releasing the need to control. Let’s allow ourselves to sink into the slow, quiet hum of the present by interrupting the chaos in our minds. Managing our minds around the urgency of tomorrow is a good place to start.

Life gets richer and possibilities become clearer. The urge to overthink is quieted. The need to know fades with each grounding breath of this present moment. This present day.

We have everything we need right here, right now to shift our day and make it the best day of our lives.