Flowers AND freezing rain

Good day or bad day?

Chipmunk party in my front yard! So fun :)

I was at Pilates a few days ago on a cold and rainy day. The theme for small talk that morning was how agitated everyone was about the weather. The woman on the reformer next to me said, ‘This weather is just so depressing!’.  We had just had a nice weekend with sunny 70 degree skies, and now the temps had plunged into the 40s.

I said to her, ‘Focusing on all the flowers and greenery that weren’t here even two weeks ago helps me to feel better’. She just pulled a blank face and turned away.

It got me to thinking about how much misery loves company and how much misery doesn’t want to be dissuaded from itself. If someone wants to feel bad, they’ll find anything to be their target for dissatisfaction, even our cyclical weather here in St Louis that’s showing up just like it always does this time of year.

In my coaching practice, I often say to clients, ‘How you do one thing is how you do everything.’ So for example, if these women can only see the ‘bad’ weather and not the flowers literally everywhere they look, then they’re probably doing the same thing with their work, families, health/body, world events, etc. Attitude is like a dial on the radio that sets the frequency you operate from.

Either you decide to find the positive in everything or you choose to constantly look for the negative. High frequency or low frequency? Your choice.

This one decision will affect the trajectory of your entire life.

It’s the only true power you have; your ability to choose, so choose wisely. In my experience, what you look for you always find.

I believe we’re getting poked every day in every way to force us to see where our dial is set. We’re being shown that we have a choice. We’re not the victim of circumstances. 

We can be happy, even if <fill in the blank>.

While most of the women in that pilates studio were putting off crabby vibes, I went into my own world of fabulousness right inside my head. I thought about how excited I was to be there to strengthen my body and how my efforts are paying off. I thought about how lucky I was to finally find an exercise class I love and can enjoy sticking with (65 classes completed since last fall and counting!). For years this wasn’t the case…

I thought about how good it felt to move my body and how lucky I am to have all my faculties to do that. 

This list goes on and on, but you get the point.

And then, when I left, out into the freezing rain, I looked around at the new life bursting forth from the earth in glorious technicolor all around me and walked to my car with a huge grin on my face.

Damn, it feels good to be alive!

I’m exercising (pun intended) my freedom of choice to find all the ways I can feel good. It’s these small moments that make up the days, weeks, months, years of a life.

I’m going to make them the best they can be.

Shine on, brave humans.

xo, Kimberly