Day 40: Summer

Posted in exercise, family, Gratitude, happily ever after, Happiness, intention, Love, motherhood, positive living, simple living, work life balance, working mom by adrianahartley

Summer days are really long, especially when you get up before the crack of dawn and go to bed at midnight!! I have 14 minutes left in the day and hope to be in bed in 7, so I’ll make this quick.

This was the highlight of my day: getting out of the house for a run and dragging Charlie along on his bike.

The run part was very hard and my legs felt like lead and it was hot!!

Today was a day of resistance and digging down deep to find gratitude when I wanted to cry and scream. I did come untethered and almost cried but was too tired to care to cry.

In the middle of feeling like shit, I tried to remember all the important things you need to know when you feel down. The problem with practicing what you’re supposed to do when you don’t want to is that it takes a lot of will power and energy when you don’t have a lot of will power and energy. I did it anyway and could feel the shift. I know it works when we practice, but man, fighting that resistance is a challenge.

Today was a challenge. And tomorrow is another day for peace, with hopefully a little more sleep, a little more food, more water and more down time.

nAhhhhhhhhMaste…..

5Jan2016

Opinionless

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I’ve been thinking about opinions lately.

In my family, we have lots of opinions and strong feelings and ideas. We are not afraid to share them and debate them and argue our sides. We are passionate and rather confident with what we each believe, which is healthy and great, but having lots of opinions can sometimes and most times, conflict and bounce against each other creating friction and tension.

I’m not even talking about philosophical opinions. Just basic and strong opinions, like which way the toilet paper roll should hang, or whether we should go for a hike. Sometimes they are over where people should sit. I mean these are really important things to feel strongly about and to discuss and debate, am I right?

The last couple of times I’ve been home, I’ve been practicing having less opinions and listening more than talking. Can I just tell you how much peace I experienced? Maybe I even offered peace to others through my stillness and acceptance of what was and by not reacting to opinions that were different than mine. I actually enjoyed listening to the debates and not partaking in the conversation, except as a listener, smiling and nodding. I didn’t feel any tension or stress and this was an A-HA moment. I let people be and didn’t try to move the ocean current of debate in any particular direction. I was just present.

I thought about the Girls’ trips I’ve been on and how much joy I experienced in this type of setting. One of the reasons why I love them so much, is because everyone just goes with the flow and the opinions about what to eat, where to go and what to do are carefree and easy and there is usually immediate group consensus without conflict. An A-HA connection! Our opinions are in alignment, almost immediately.

Now I’m not advocating being boring and a bump on a log without any feelings or expressions. I’m just wondering if we practice being a little bit more accepting and flowing with other people’s opinions without feeling as strongly about our own or thinking that they are wrong, that we might swirl our ideas together like dance partners and just enjoy being in the moments together a little longer, in sync. We might just celebrate our gifts versus our gaps. Just sayin’

Well, that’s just my opinion. 😉

nAMaste

9Dec2015

Day and Night – Love the Light

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I am stressed. This time of year stresses me out and gives me anxiety, every single time it comes around. I know it’s coming and I do my best to manage it but I find myself overwhelmed and loving it all at the same time. Yin and Yang.

I’m practicing slowing down in the busyness, at least to breathe and to pay attention to my family and my surroundings and to my body. That hopefully balances out the to do lists, chaos and disorder that surround and swirl around me daily. The key word is practicing. I’m still learning. *smile*

The light colored leaves captured my attention on my walk today with my friend. I love these colors and shapes and how they look both beautiful on the branches and fallen covering the ground.

The purple and pink sky took my breathe away and slowed me down before getting in the car to drive Charlie to his event. I loved driving around and watching the sky show. Juliana mentioned that it looked like we lived in Aruba or Hawaii with that kind of sunset. I’m glad she enjoyed it too.

After Charlie’s practice, he asked me to drive down the street with his friends still in the car so that we all could see the house that is fully decorated with lights and animated inflatables, including santa in a helicopter. There was also a figure with a lit up countdown to Christmas that displayed there are 15 days left until Santa arrives. YIKES!! Only 2 more weeks to enjoy the insanity and make memories.

Wishing you love and light and peace amongst the chaos, BeLoveRs. Remember to breathe in happiness and breathe out stress. Naaaaaahmaaaaste.

xo Adriana

21Oct2014

Stress Relief

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So being that we’re perfectly imperfect, what do you do to relieve stress?

Here are my top 11, in no particular order:

1. Swear! Yes, this is my weakness. So dirty and foul but it feels good to me and helps me to let things go.

2. Wine. I love a glass of white wine at night to unwind.

3. Friends. My friends give me comfort. I love being able to share my life with girlfriends in different circles and share our days.

4. Ocean. When I go to the ocean, I feel insignificant in a good way, meaning I feel so small compared to the big blue ocean. I love the ebb and flow of the waves, the sights and the smells.

5. Exercise. When I come out of a yoga class, or a singles tennis match, or a long hike, or a paddle on the ocean, I feel invigorated.

6. Cry. The release of tears let’s me let go of pain and stress that I hold inside. When the tears come, I let them flow. Tears are good. I just try to limit them.

7. Date. When I get time to date my husband, I feel happy. It’s the uninterrupted attention that I appreciate and the time dedicated to just the two of us that makes me feel centered.

8. Prayer. Sometimes life is a mystery and there are no answers. In these times and others, I pray to The Lord to show me the way. I say let Your will be done and show me the way. I surrender control and wait for His light to guide me. This is magical.

9. Clean. When I get stressed, I long for order and to remove the chaos of daily life. I start to clean and clean until order in my house is restored and I can think and focus again.

10. Social media. I play mindless games, read Facebook Status updates and blogs, check Instagram and Pinterest and get lost in my non-reality world. It occupies my mind and I don’t have to think or do.

11. Writing. Writing has always been an outlet for me. I used to write in journals. Now I write this daily blog and it’s cathartic. I love the medium and creating something new everyday, focusing on gratitude along the way.

Stay happy and stress free my BeLoveRs.

xo Adriana

10Apr2014

Do-Over

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I believe in positive thinking and focusing on the positive, despite the chaos of life. But sometimes I lose my focus and feel frustration and anger. Thank God, I’m normal, right?

Usually I lose my positive mojo when I’m overtired, because what ever is agitating me takes over my body because I’m too tired to reverse my thinking.

I have this little FitBit thing that motivates me to workout and also monitors my sleep. I press a button when I get into bed and press it again when I wake up and it tracks the hours and minutes I’ve been sleeping and the minutes I’ve been restless. It’s fascinating to see the patterns. The last several nights I’ve been getting about 7 hours of sleep with several minutes of restlessness throughout the night. I have to admit, that I’m feeling tired just knowing that I’m getting less than 8 hours of sleep. I love sleep! It feels like a luxury to get at least 8 hours, which is what we’re “supposed” to get on an average night. I guess I’m falling short.

Today I was feeling more agitated than usual. Usually, I’m able to feel gratitude for my blessings, but today I ran short. I had a “free” day and was going to head to the beach, but it was foggy and overcast here, which made it less than a desirable journey. I decided I’d stay home and work on my big photo project, which is like a gigantic elephant in the room. Let’s just say, I didn’t make much progress and accessing my digital backups was a slow and painful process. Every step forward was two steps back, which left me frustrated.

I did manage to get rid of all plastic storage boxes from my historical printed photos and made our inventory look a little more organized and pretty, but I was still harboring frustration as I moved through the day, feeling frustrated by this HUGE “problem” facing me that I wanted to conquer and organize.

The point of me sharing this story, is that I felt ugly on the inside today and short tempered. When I picked up Charlie from school today, he was also overtired and short tempered too. The two of us together were ugly. He said that I was being mean and he was right. I didn’t have any patience and was snappy. He was snappy too because he was overtired and had some issues at school too. Nothing major, but he wasn’t his happy self either. The two of us were feeding off each other and it wasn’t good.

I felt the storm brewing. I felt how my negative attitude brought out the worst of his negative attitude and how the circle continued until I asked him for a do-over. He didn’t know what that meant. I told him it was when two people decided they were done feeling yucky and wanted to start over again, at that moment just because someone declared a do-over to allow us a chance to start again, and to be happy again despite our feeling badly. I met him at the table and gave him a hug and we started over again. Just like that, and we both smiled and felt relief that we didn’t have to hold on to our frustration anymore. Starting over is such a good feeling. Knowing that you’re feeling off and then being able to do something about it to change the way you’re feeling is powerful.

So if you ever feel like we did today, with someone you’re in close contact with that’s bugging you, just ask for a Do-Over. It’s a great way to start again and feel better and to let go of all the stress that was keeping you from feeling connected.

Life really is good.