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It is a crisp, fall morning. The sun is just making its way up the horizon as I wake up from a good night’s sleep. The house is quiet. My children are still sound asleep upstairs, and my husband gives a soft snore as he rolls over in bed. Even the dogs have not stirred. As I lie there thinking about the day, I know that my calendar is empty. The house chores are finished. My office responsibilities are fulfilled. I have nothing but free hours ahead.
I quickly and quietly jump from bed. I am so excited that I have butterflies in my stomach. I rush back to my closet and find my favorite swimming suit and soft bath robe. As I pass through the laundry room, I grab ahold of a pool towel and head to the back deck where our hot tub sits. The cold air outside has me rushing to get in. And as I climb inside and turn on the jets, I rest the towel behind my head and just breath in the air around me. I turn on my favorite relaxing music, Van Morrison on Pandora, and I just take it all in.
At this moment, with the white, foamy bubbles surrounding me, I feel so content in my life. I feel peace all around me. I feel almost euphoric as I breath in the crisp air thinking about nothing but free hours ahead. And in that moment, I realize how precious life is. How we only have one life, and it’s important to live it just like this as often as possible. And all of this is so clear to me in this moment. It is so clear because I truly feel the happiest I have felt in quite some time.
And I guess this all really does makes sense. It makes perfect sense that I would be this happy right in this moment because I am in a very special place for me. A place I love so much, a place I promise, in this moment, to visit more often…it’s called “My Happy Place.”
And while all of our happy places look different in each of our lives, which is what makes us unique, I like to think the pleasurable feelings are similar. The happiness and contentment are the same. The excitement is second to none. We all love to spend time in this beautiful “place”.
But then reality hits…
And just as life will do to us, this day passes just as quickly as it came. The calendar starts to fill up again. The responsibilities become insurmountable. All of a sudden, weeks turn into months and months turn into years. And that euphoric feeling, the happiness, the peace, the contentment, my promise to myself, it all becomes a distant memory. Almost like it was never my reality to begin with. Maybe that was all just a dream? It has been so long since that perfect day in my happy place that, honestly, I can’t even remember for sure if it happened.
And as I now look in the mirror, I start to see a person I don’t even recognize. This person…she looks exhausted. She looks drained. She looks defeated. She looks as if all the energy was sucked right out of her. She doesn’t look happy or peaceful or content. And euphoria…what is that again?
So how did she get here? What happened after that fall morning?
If she were to be honest with herself, she would continue to look at that reflection in the mirror and tell this person she doesn’t recognize anymore these very important words….
“You.Kept.Saying.Yes.”
And I did, I kept saying Yes.
What I have come to realize is that we all keep saying Yes. Yes to everyone. Yes to everything.
We say yes to our family. Yes to our friends. Yes to our children. Yes to our spouse. Yes to our coworkers. We say Yes…Yes…Yes.
So, why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep running ourselves to the ground? I believe it is because of the expectations this world puts on us. It’s a world that tells us it is wrong to say no. A society that tells us if we take time for ourselves or spend time on our own…we are selfish. A culture that has us only feeling important if we are always running and staying busy because of all of our “yeses” in our life.
I am TIRED of always saying Yes.
How about you? How do all of those “yeses” really make you feel? Are they really making you feel content, peaceful, and happy? Are you living your best life in your happy place as often as you can?
If not, then it’s time we make some changes. It’s time to take back our life. It’s time to, finally, every once in a while, be selfish and not let the guilt follow after. To get energized. To renew our spirit. It’s time to finally get back to making regular visits to our happy place…whatever that might look like for you.
And by making the choice to not run ourselves to the ground, I believe we can become better people. We can become people who listen more because we don’t have so much on our minds. We can become people who have energy because we haven’t drained every ounce of it before dinner time. We can become people who find the time to do those little things in life for others to make them smile or to cheer up their day
And what ends up happening next is really the most important thing…
We end up becoming people who finally know and understand just how precious life really is. How each moment in our life is important and should not be taken for granted. And by not always saying yes, we finally realize that we are choosing to live our best lives…in our happy place…hopefully surrounded with those white, foamy bubbles on a beautiful fall morning.
Xoxo
Marsha
*For those of you struggling with something in life or have a topic of interest that you want me to talk about in this blog, email me at BeYourBestSelfBlog@gmail.com. Let’s work together to Be Our Best Selves!