Looking like a test of mettle on Day One.
I shouted, yelled, shrieked - very loudly - at my oldest son this morning. I had asked him to unload the dishwasher (his daily chore) this morning. Ten minutes later, it still hadn't been unloaded, and he was downstairs, currently in the process of aggravating his younger siblings.
So, yeah, I cut loose with, "Spencer! Get up here and unload this dishwasher. NOW!"
By golly, then, he moved pretty quickly.
I suppose there are a thousand more positive ways I should have handled the situation. I could have pleaded, begged, cajoled, joked...but no, I opted for a good ol' scream down.
I realize that I have no positive mantra for the month. I have no techniques, no strategies to bring forth the positive thoughts. But here's something I'm going to keep in mind:
Number 9 on Monday's post is: Purge Negative Thoughts. This seems insurmountable, and maybe even unnatural. Any Taoist will tell you can't have the good without the bad, the light without the dark...and the same is true for positive and negative.
So, I think I'll be focusing less on the purging, and more on the doing - because I think it's what we do when we have that negative emotion that counts more than anything.
For example, this morning, the negative emotion I experienced was irritation and annoyance. Those things are hard to purge. But, how did I react? By screaming. Bad reaction.
In short, natural emotion, unnatural reaction. I think I know where I should channel my energies!
No comments:
Post a Comment