I’d say that on average, on about 95% of my mornings I wake up ready and amped to see what the world holds for me. Now, that’s not to say that I always leap right out of bed immediately when my alarm goes off. I’m not a morning person – I never have been. But as I begin to slowly acclimate to my morning practice once I snake my way out of the sheets, I’m pretty quick to recognize that the day ahead of me is a true gift and I love looking forward to the variety of surprises that will come my way.

19 out of 20 days ain’t bad. But that 1 out of 20? What in the hell….

You know the day I’m talking about. It’s that day where, even though you still may feel like it’s starting out like all those other good ones, something’s just slightly off. Then seemingly out of nowhere, something shifts entirely and that slightly off feeling turns full on into, why do I want to punch a wall right now?-type discontent.

Everything surrounding us becomes intolerable. That person that just changed lanes in front of us totally cut us off! (Uh… except they were like 3 car lengths ahead of us, at least – so not really)  

For whatever reason, my morning today became that kind of atmosphere. And it’s infuriating!

I’m driving Jess and I to yoga this morning and it feels like everyone is going too slow and are always in my way. We get to the studio and set up our mats and I feel like everyone is encroaching into my space (take up a little more room why don’tcha?? says my inner chatter). My interior judging voice is just running rampant. 

And then it starts getting worse because I know this isn’t the person I embody and I begin to judge myself for being a petty asshole. It becomes a vicious circle of judgment and unnecessary ire.

But somewhere, somehow in the middle of that sweat-drenching class, the fight mode completely shifted – seemingly just as quickly as it had appeared in the first place.

I can’t really pinpoint the exact moment, but it must have been somewhere between the pose causing an epic burn in my right hamstring and the pose that was creating the shaking fatigue in my left calf.

I realized the exercise itself – the concentration on just focusing on my body, my alignment (both physically and mentally) and my strength completely wiped away any of those thoughts. Somewhere in the middle of all that centering work, I’d just kind of forgotten what I thought was bothering me so much. 

Duh. This has always been my releasing my mental tightness. Literally sweating that shit out. Apparently I’d just forgotten at the moment.

I’ve known for quite some time that my mechanism for shifting an impure mindset has been to work on my physical self. So not only am I improving my strength, stamina and overall physical health, I’m also putting my mind back in its natural peaceful state (what’s the opposite of a catch-22? It’s like that….). 

The problem is, so much of what I witness going on around me is that others are so reluctant to even try to return to that natural state. It’s all in us, somewhere. The tranquil ease that everything is working out for us. Nothing is ever happening to us. 

Sometimes we forget that. 

But it’s knowing that, even if it’s not truly obvious in the moment, we can return to that state – we just have to know how. And sadly, I’m not sure many take the small amount of time to realize what could bring us back.

For me, 90% of the time it’s just getting a little workout in. Breathing hard. Building up a sweat. That other time I may need to just sit down and meditate, quiet my mind, shut off the other blabbering voices in my head. 

For others, it’s likely entirely different. But one thing is for sure – if you don’t know what it is, you can’t use it. And that makes it a lot harder to rediscover your natural state of ease. 

What does it for you? What can remove that anxiety, that frustration that may have seemingly come from absolutely nowhere?

If you don’t know, I highly recommend exploring what that is for you. And yeah, it might take a little bit of journaling, a little bit of deep diving into what gives you peace. But it’s there. Promise. 

Find your natural state… because we’re all meant to live in an amazing state…