How To Have A Good Morning

On page 47 of the Change Your Life Challenge book, Brook shares her belief that a bad morning can cause a whole day to go bad. I didn't agree with that at first, wanting to deny that I could let a bad morning define my day, but as I tried her little experiment and re-read her chapter, I do agree that our mood does define our day, and our mood usually begin when we wake up in the morning, so we've got to intentionally and deliberately try to make our mood be a good and positive one.

So, she says to repeat this little positive statement to yourself each morning to help you start out on the right foot:

"Something great is going to happen today
... I can't wait to see what it is!"

Kinda hokey, right? Yes, it is, and she admits it is, but she said just do it anyway, and since I'm trying to do my homework from this book, I have done it. After doing the morning shift of carpooling, when I'm all alone driving back home, I've had the radio off and faked a good mood and said to myself very energetically "Today's going to be a great day! I can't wait to see what happens!" Say it again, Tiff, louder! "Today's going to be a great day! I can't wait to see what happens!" One more time, let me hear you like you mean it!!! "TODAY'S GOING TO BE A GREAT DAY!! I'M EXCITED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!!" There ya go!  And you know what, after saying three or four or ten times, I feel like a silly goof and I actually feel kinda happy! Look at that, it works!

So, on Tuesday, Ethan was having a bad morning. The day before had been super busy for him - jazz band at 7 a.m., school all day, home at 3, off to jazz band practice at 4, home from that at 7, then dinner, and right after dinner we had Family Home Evening and... he fell asleep during my doctrinal discourse which was apparently too long for most of my audience. I think we lost 5 of the kids to the sand man that lesson. So, poor Ethan wakes up on Tuesday in a panic cause not only did he wake up late for a normal morning, but he was late AND hadn't done any of his homework. When Ethan is feeling behind... it... makes... him... even... slower. Mel woke up late one morning and she was out the door in 4 minutes, she's fast when she's in panic mode. But not Ethan. Here we were, it was 7:00 a.m. and time to leave for school, and all he'd done in the past half hour was shower and get dressed. I told him that when he wakes up late, it's okay to skip the shower... and then he barked at me (cause he was in a bad mood, right?) He fought anything positive I said with his bad attitude, cause his subconscious mind wanted him to be right, right? It's looking for ways to justify itself: Yep, you're right, see! It's going to be a bad day today! So he was in a bad mood. I was in a pretty good mood since I had this positive self talk on my mind and my brain wanted me to be right too. Plus it's just so easy for me to be in a good mood when I have these bright eyes reminding me every morning (I love you Natalie!!!):

So as I took him to school, I told him that after I drop him off every morning, I talk to myself in the car saying "Today's going to be a great day!" in a hyper teenager voice, and that it kinda works to help me be in a good mood. Don't throw in the towel on your the yet, come on, little buddy, say it with me! And his first repetition was pretty pathetic, then he got into the goofiness of it with me, and when I was dropping him off, we were joking and smiling.

Yesterday he told me "I've been saying that to myself when I feel sad and it really works! I've been in a good mood everyday!" Isn't that great! Now we're going to start applying it to the siblings pecking order that's going on around here. Instead of letting them think "My brother is annoying me!" and then let their brains unconsciously look for ways to prove they are right ("Yup, he just did something Lily didn't like, he's a jerk! Yell at him!") Yeah, we're gonna nip that thing in the shorts and when they start to fight or if I can tell they are being irritated with each other, I'll make them say "I love my brother, he's a good kid" or something like that over and over again until they feel it. It like this re-learning of the idea of the power of words! Here's to another good day!