“What Was Easy?”

We’ve all had days where you get to the evening and your mind is spinning with the troubling events that have happened that day.  It makes it hard to unwind and sleep. After learning about a shocking development in our neighbourhood recently, I was having difficulty pausing my thoughts so that I could get to sleep. One troubling event always seems to be a gateway for my brain to unearth ALL the troubling events that it can think of! That negative bias that our brains have becomes super-charged and all I can see is one big dumpster fire. This is not a recipe for sleep, or peace of mind.

Learning From Others

Luckily, I have some pretty awesome folks in my life with nuggets of wisdom.  This piece comes from my young hairstylist. Recently, she shared with me, that as part of her morning mantra she says, “Show me how easy it is.” Reminding herself to look out for the things that will be easy, sets herself up for a less stressful day. Because, no matter how challenging your day becomes, there will be easy things in there.  Those things will be overlooked by your brain unless you’re paying attention. It’s a simple and effective gratitude practice.

Un-spiralling And Calming

I used this wisdom and turned it into an evening question that helped me to unplug my spiralling mind:  “What was easy today?”  When I thought about it there had been a lot of things that came with ease. Walking the dog, eating leftovers for dinner, and finding parking had all been straightforward that day. As I thought more about it, I found even more things that had been trouble-free, and my body started to relax. It was like the emergency light had been turned off and my brain reset.  “What was easy today?” Simple, but very effective.

“What was easy today?” Comment below if you’d give this a try or if you have another effective question that you use.

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