Taking time to bask when life gets good | Andrea de Michaelis – Creating my own reality, one thought at a time

For some reason, this two year old post –> When do you help others and when do you help yourself is getting lots of views this week. When I hit 40, guidance began flooding out of me and I wrote almost 24/7. When I read now what I wrote 10, 15, 20 years ago, it is always relevant to something in my life that I failed to see at the time it was written. At 40, I thought I understood. At 60, I realize I’m just beginning to scratch the surface. It’s like when I had a vegetarian boyfriend a dozen years before “healthy eating” really sunk in for me and I changed my own eating habits. I “learned” the information in 1992, but didn’t “grok” the information until 2004. Like the volumes of spiritual books that I read early on and highlighted here and underlined there, only to read years later and wonder why I highlighted the least insightful parts? It does not matter, it can be right in front of us and be handed to us on a platter, but if we are not in the right state of consciousness to receive it, it will not be ours for long. Things will come to us throughout our life, and we determine what stays and what slips away. Just like any thought that we have, we may not be able to control what pops into our head, but we can control what thoughts we allow to linger and develop. And for how long.

I finished final layout on the March 2014 magazine last night. It was about 57 degrees outside at midnight. I’ve barely spent much time in the yard this week and I’m off my sleep schedule. As usual, the only thing that interrupts my schedule is making time for a social life. I’m blessed my partner lives a block away, we stay connected by quick visits and texts several times a day and night. And I phrased that incorrectly: The only thing that interrupts my schedule is my pre-conceived notion of what my schedule is and what it should be. As usual, the only thing that needs to be changed is my perception.

So it’s midnight as I leave the office, and I shower as I heat up last night’s veggie chili. It’s the first I’ve gotten to relax completely in almost two weeks. I had to begin the March magazine while readying my rental home for a new tenant. But now I can relax. I stepped outside and saw the waning full moon almost directly overhead. I took my bowl of chili out into the firepit area and chose to not have a fire. I sat bundled in jeans and flannel shirt, relaxing on my blanket in the comfy chair, my garden boots up on the bricks. The chili was hot and spicy and I listened to the night sounds as I ate.

I love sitting alone in the middle of the night, relaxing after the day, after the week. I dig spending time with my partner and am blessed to have attracted someone who, like me, has a rich inner life and values alone time. My work tends to run late into the night because I sleep during the afternoon. Our schedules mesh perfectly since I like that midnight time to myself. So, last night as I sat watching the moon cross the sky from behind the oak branches, I took a moment to marvel at the synchronicities of the last two weeks. A tenant moved out without notice and I found another within a week of his vacancy. I had to move furniture and appliances out and thought to offer them for sale to my Facebook friends. All pick ups happened like clockwork. I hadn’t much time to ask about ad renewals for the March magazine, although I did give it some thought time. It turned out that everyone renewed, in addition to 6 new ads I didn’t anticipate. I got a lesson in using my magazine ad space more effectively.

I could hear the night critters moving in the woods surrounding me, the raccoons, the armadillos, opossums. I sat right under a moon beam and felt the night soak up within me. As it did that, I could feel all stress leaving my body. That’s what nature does for me, it is like a sponge, wicking all my stress away from me. I wrapped my blanket around me and sunk deeper into the chair, looking up at the fading full moon, now in the west sky. I dozed there for several hours and it was a very restful sleep. I went inside and laid down on the stretch of carpet in front of the altar in the meditation area to finish my evening’s nap. I could feel the cold in my joints this morning but to sleep upon the earth, or out in nature, is such a healing benefit that the little aches and misquito bites matter not at all. Kind of like when the dog sticks his head out the car window even though he gets bugs in his teeth — because it’s so worth it. When life is going as well as it is now, I take lots of time to bask in the appreciation of it all since I know that is what keeps it coming my way. The better it gets, the better it gets.