Ready! Set! Go!

Read and heard recently that one way to help improve one's day-to-day life is to begin the day with some positive habits, thoughts and feelings. Sort of setting the tone. It would be easy for me to think of such advice as trite. In fact, I often do! Yet, I've had some experiences lately that have led me to experiment with doing this and seeing how it goes.

For one, I find that when I listen to a short dharma talk in the morning, or part of one (right now I'm really enjoy Josh Korda's talks over at dharma punx nyc), I have a better chance at having a good day. It's not a guarantee, but I'm able to let those words filter down throughout the morning, and I remember them as the day goes along. Sort of gives me something to focus on other than manufactured stress.

Meditation provides a similar effect, but it's much more subtle, and I usually only recognize that it's helping me in retrospect, or when I stop daily meditation (so many times I've thought: Huh, I wonder why I'm so aggro lately?--and the answer, in part, has been: Ooooooh. Haven't been meditating). Meditation doesn't solve problems for me, but it helps me to see what are actually problems (i.e. things I can do and need to do something about) and what are things/situations/people I can't possibly control. Which, y'know, cuts down my to-do list considerably.

And then there's my partner, who wakes up funny and happy, partly as a matter of effort, and partly just as part of her disposition. The mornings I wake up with her and spend even a few minutes in her presence, even when we haven't slept well, or have lots of stuff to do that day, or have considerable worries, are the beginnings of the best days I have.

So I'm going to try starting my day with some dharma talk-y goodness, and some meditation, and maybe some writing, mixed in with some yoga, and see if I can cultivate that as a habit to effect (long-term and short-term) my day-to-day life. Now, cultivating habits is a whole 'nother thing, but I'm not going to worry about that too much right now (baby steps), except to point out that one impediment to creating new habits for me has to do with just paying attention to the current habits. This morning I was about to listen to a dharma talk, but I checked my email first and found myself down the rabbit hole of the blogosphere, reading comments and getting worked up as folks were batting about angry words toward male feminists (a button of mine, of course) and the like. And I spent about 5 minutes on it before I realized that, really, that's not what I want to be doing with my morning. I'll go back to it later if I want to, but consciously this time, y'know? So, recognizing when I'm doing that is probably the single best thing I can do to help myself cultivate new habits.