A self awareness exercise!

If we go back to the basics of self awareness, it consists of a monitoring of one's own thoughts. If you hold negative expectations, you will have plenty of equivalent happenings. Imagine the extent of the sabotage we all start our day with. We can have the greatest, most productive, go-for-gold itinerary in our diaries but our thoughts are telling a completely different story…setting a completely different mood …and creating a completely different experience…than the fulfilling day we had hoped for.

Hang on, we hadn't hoped for it, that was the problem. Our minds are busy with possible shortcomings, a fear of not meeting the mark, letting someone down, letting something slip, if not a full on belief that nothing goes your way and the whole world is against you! Not hopeful at all! Stoic maybe, determined, committed maybe but the energy is reluctant rather than hopeful, in anyone's book. So you're creating a reluctant outcome. This might be succeeding 'against the odds', it might be 'making it through'. These heavy expectations take the form of 'what if…'

In my case, the worst this morning were: what if Windy pulls the board down on himself in the stable, what if Don Juan has decided he can't use the cat flap any more and has made a mess, what if I start the mower and ruin the engine again as the petrol has gone off, what if I didn't plant the new stretch of willow fence deep enough? what if that pony, that ran down the road last night, was Magic?

I can hear Windy lumbering about in his stable from my bed so, at its best, its like Mr Ed The Talking Horse. However, with those 'what ifs' rumbling about in my mind, I'm actually listening to an accident waiting to happen. There is an anxiety and sense of foreboding, rather than an elevated leap out of bed at dawn, feeling the full promise of the day!

So, this day's focus on self awareness has revealed a situation of anxiety and negative expectations. So what do I do? I relax about it, get neutral and ask how much are negative expectations coloring my day? 80% I get for an answer. Oh lordy, I could say, but no! That's fine, I'll just acknowledge them in general, remember that I more fundamentally trust in oneness and that everything is working out in perfect order, for the greater good, and I come back to peace. And positivity. From this perspective, the day will be a much better creation; full of optimism, joy and service to all! What are your expectations?