Remember the morning when you woke up today. What’s the first thing you did mentally and physically?

Now, imagine you just got into your car. What’s the first set of things you’d do? You would probably (hopefully – for your own sake) put on the seatbelt, release the handbrake, check the gear in neutral (or at least engage the brake pedal if you have an automatic), and then start the engine.

You clearly don’t just start the car and hit the accelerator. You have a sense that that’s not how its meant to be operated.

What if your body and mind are not meant to be operated like that either?

This shouldn’t be hard to imagine – you wake up and the next moment you start thinking of all the meetings and emails lined up for you today. Your mind starts racing. It goes back to where it was on your computer screen before you fell asleep. With all these thoughts, you get out of bed and go through your chores.

I’ve been there – there were weeks where I even dreamt of excel sheets. And I’d wake up thinking of replies to emails. I didn’t enjoy it.

Now imagine this – You wake up and you stay silent in your mind. Instead of firing it up with thoughts, you acknowledge the simple sense of being sentient and alive. As you do this, your breathing is naturally slow and you enjoy that feeling of fresh air in your chest. You notice how nice it feels to operate all your sense organs. 

Seriously – when was the last time you tried it? And then you get out of bed, stretch, and go about your day.

If you really imagined both the scenarios, you’ll know how differently you feel in each one. Today, this is my invitation for you – to do what feels good to imagine. I’d love to hear how that goes for you.

With all my love,

Rishi