I would not label myself as religious, though I considered myself Catholic for the first 30 years of my life. Now I identify as spiritual, by which I mean an awareness of and appreciation of the gifts of Mother Nature, the magic all around us and the power of our thoughts, feelings, words and actions to change our lives for the better. For me it is about causing no harm to others, but rather to find ways and situations to help others live their best lives, the best version of themselves, whilst being true to who I am called to be, the best, authentic version of myself.

In any religion that celebrates Easter, it signifies new life, being born again. I consider that not only at Easter, but that every day we are given the chance for creating our life anew. Each day is a brand new one, with endless new opportunities and possibilities. Every day is a new day, a new chance for love, laughter, happiness, success, health, prosperity, abundance and things to be grateful for. For me it is all about our thoughts, feelings, actions and words.

How do you wake up each day? Full of woe and with yesterday heavy in your mind, or with excitement of all that the day will bring? I have worked out that it is choice, as silly as that sounds, that we have the power to create our day. Some of us intrinsically know this, for others, like me, it takes practice.

I will give you an example from my life. I have lost count of the number of nights where I would go to bed lamenting and worrying about, playing over and over in my head the things that I didn’t like in my day – family drama stuff, people at work behaving in a way I didn’t like, basically I let the behaviour of others dictate my life. After a restless night of worry I would wake up dreading what drama would happen that day. Who would yell, scream, try to boss me around, telling me I wasn’t good enough? Who would jump in on a work thing and make so much more work for me? You get the picture – I suspect to a degree most people can identify with this type of pattern.

And guess what, the pattern would continue. I would be so focused on all that stuff, the drama, the bullying, the put downs, it would be hard for me to see the good that was happening all around me. Thankfully all that was many years ago. There are of course still days (and nights) where I might go to bed with regret of stuff I didn’t do or not liking the way a work meeting went, but thankfully with practice I now flip the thought and instead count ten things I am grateful for. Examples are my health, my husband, the stuff we have done here, the weather, the yummy food we ate, the veggies we have grown, conversations with family and friends, our home, all the birds and butterflies in our backyard, that I can work from home, my office, etc.

In the morning, as I wake up, I check my thoughts, and make sure they are focused on the good from the day before and all the good things that are going to happen that day. For example, being grateful that the meeting will go well, that we will get our garden weeded or pruned, that I will set up an online class, that I will talk to one of my kids, that sort of thing. Even if a meeting didn’t go as planned, I can now let go of that, it is only one small part of my life. I mightn’t be able to “control’ others, but I can control my reaction to what is happening around me. I can control how I think, feel, act and the words I speak.

What I also do now, though at times I do still find this part a little tricky, is picture the long term stuff. I picture what it would be like to be in contact with all of my children, to have my business successful and set up and with lots of customers I can help each day. For me, because these things haven’t happened yet, it is harder to picture, but I know picturing them is one of the keys to making them happen. Hard work, vision, skills are also important factors.  

So back to the point of my post today. Consider the endless possibilities of each day. Think about, understand and practice creating our lives the way we want them to be. Celebrate and embrace all that is good in our lives. Focus on the good. Each day is a brand new day.