A Tea and Toast Kind of Day

Today I am not inspired.  I don’t have a great passion roaring through my veins desperately seeking an outlet.  Today, I am just me.  I’m the ‘me’ that sits in my jammies until 9, sipping Vanilla Rooibos (how do you pronounce that, anyway?) and battling the internal conflict of oat bran over buttery, sweet, cinnamon toast.  (If I could eat sugary cakie yumminess all day long, every single day, I would be the happiest of woman.)  

It’s also raining. It’s hard to be inspired when it’s raining, especially in the winter. Rainy days bring out my biological instinct to hibernate, to snuggle down deep in a nest of pillows and blankets, awaiting the sunshiny warmth of spring.  I want to eat carbs, watch old movies and cuddle with my honey until it’s over.

When you are a passionate being, like me, everything seems to have a feeling of urgency.  Everything is really important right now, this instant. From a social injustice, to a friend who lost her spot in line at the grocery, I feel like I need to speak out, write letters, join forces to change the world.  It’s exhilarating.  It gives me a feeling of connectedness, my inner energy to the rest of the world.  It’s what makes life meaningful to me.

On days like today, the passion is dulled...quiet.  I feel adrift.  I have to be mindful of my thoughts as they tend to wander to a place of negative energy, drawing me down, calling me to question my value and worth.  I recognize this pattern now, and I am not tricked by it anymore.  Instead of allowing my thoughts to take me on a dark journey, I use these days for reflection and gratitude.  I remind myself of all the things I have accomplished in the days and weeks before.  I reflect on how fortunate I am in the life I have, the friends I have been blessed with, and the talents and gifts that were bestowed on me upon my birth.

It would be so easy to feel blue, say ‘chuck it all’ and eat a whole loaf of cinnamon toast made out of crappy white bread, surfing facebook for hours, wishing I had something better to do, bemoaning my lack of inspiration, my inability to create, to take on something big... wondering what’s wrong with me that I am so boring, and uninspired. But I won’t give in to the doldrums. 

I’m going to fix fabulously healthy oat bran, because it’s good for me.  It has lots of fiber.  I’m going to practice some mountain poses sprinkled with a few sun salutations, and maybe even a down dog or 2 thrown in for good measure.  Yoga is very good for a restless soul like mine.  And, I’m going to be thankful, remembering that every day is just the day that I needed.  I’m going to be good to myself, inside and out.

Tomorrow the sun will shine.  Someone will be unheard, unfairly treated, wonderfully talented or delightfully funny and I will be inspired by life once again.