The First Hour Of Your Day
The first hour of your day needs to be focused on the positive. If you don’t control this, or at least SEEK to control this…
- You are adding to your stress and strain
- You are more vulnerable to your negative voices
- It is more difficult to remain focused on the most critical and important tasks.
- You will experience less joy.
“There is suffering in life” is NOT the same statement as “life is suffering”, a translation that implies that if you aren’t suffering, aren’t in pain, you aren’t alive.
Buddhist scholar and adept Charles Johnson and I wrote an entire book on this subject, THE EIGHTFOLD PATH, and he agreed this is a critical distinction. The more negative interpretation appeals to your demons. Because this distracts you from the fact that the MEANING of life is to escape suffering, embrace joy, and be of service.
IF YOU START WITH THE BELIEF THAT “LIFE IS SUFFERING” then by definition, escaping it and embracing joy is impossible. You wouldn’t be alive. You would be…what?
How much joy, how many smiles, how much accomplishment do you have to ignore to believe the essence if not the totality of life is suffering? And if you HAVE this belief in your heart, do you grasp that you cannot evolve to a life of joy and service?
It is CRITICAL to interrogate your beliefs. To ask “Is it True? Is it Kind? Is it Useful?”
I suggest that the belief that “life is suffering” as opposed to “there is suffering” is untrue, unkind, and useful only to the small percentage of human being stuck in the kind of pain and distress that even morphine cannot help. Utter despair and agony. And yes, it would be true to acknowledge that there are people stuck there.
They need our help. Without the capacity to take care of themselves in a meaningful and joyful way, they need the support of their community. And that means people who have enough surplus joy, energy and resource to share with them.
Doesn’t that give the rest of us the obligation to be the strongest, wisest, most compassionate, joyful people we can be? Abundant? Generous coming from a place of love and empathy?
We speak of creating a more inclusive, compassionate world, one that sees the increasing collection of production capacity in fewer and fewer hands, creating a situation where more and more people simply cannot find meaningful work. Can we look at this, empathize, and share our bounty?
And if we decide that is the Way, do we not have an obligation to, not merely “not hurt” in our bodies, but have BLAZING energy, to do our work with joy, if work we have? To be able to lift up the unfortunate, when they stumble?
Do we not need to rise above merely “not suffering” to actual JOY? To love ourselves enough to vow to protect our dreams and autonomy, such that we are safe to lower our walls and really see the humanity in those less fortunate? To, as individuals and a society, to help them rise, give them hope? To DECIDE to be the kind of joyful, passionate human being who can have a joyful, passionate relationship and let it SHINE? Do you have any concept how many people don’t even believe that is POSSIBLE?
And do we not need to do more than “get by” financially? To have the reserves to be of help to people on the other side of the world if necessary? To not just have enough to cope with emergencies in our own life but be a safety net for the people we love? “Enough” money is merely escaping suffering, and while it is a very good thing to pay your bills, that is motivating action with FEAR rather than love. And that will trap you in borderline poverty, because you are motivate to do “enough” to keep going, but as soon as you have “enough” your motivation drops, and you will fall back into your old patterns until the next emergency, when, if you are lucky, once again you will glimpse who you really are.
If you accept the given statement about the meaning of life, simply apply a success pattern of some kind to it. The MAGIC formula would demand this: find a map. If that map was, for instance, “Think And Grow Rich” and the defined riches are abundance of energy, love, and resources, the first step (Desire) would be to ADMIT YOU WANT IT. The next step is FAITH. Do you BELIEVE that you can and should thrive? Brothers and sisters, this is where the rubber meets the road, and where a statement like “life is suffering” will crush your dreams. This is where therapy, meditation, journaling and other disciplines can help you to see what you REALLY believe about this, and whether your current beliefs, values, and emotional charges support a happy, healthy life.
If you CANNOT say, with confidence, clarity and congruence that your insides support the external tasks you must complete, day after day, to be the person who can walk the path that leads to your destination, then “AUTO-SUGGESTION” is your friend.
The MAGIC formula’s solution here is varied, but primarily the “Morning Ritual” that includes things like:
- Protecting the first hour of the day, feeding yourself POSITIVE thought, emotion, and action.
- Exercise to raise your energy. A goal of “doubling your energy” will require examining every aspect of who you are. And it is HELLA easier to be optimistic when your energy is high. You dance like Gene Kelly in “Singing in the Rain” — a cinematic expression of the power of positive energy, in this case love. Not only was his character dancing in a downpour, but Kelly himself had a fever the day they filmed it. This is what Patton Oswalt called “Stage Health” — the ability to function at the necessary level of energy to complete a commitment.
- BREATHE. Five times a day, sixty seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing, at the top of the hour.
- And of course FIREDANCE, using affirmations and visualizations WHILE IN MOTION. Do you visualize the mentors who can solve your life issues? Visualize and feel what you are grateful for? I have a dozen mentors, friends, and family members who guide and inspire me, and I HAVE to connect with that every day. It is the spark that I can feed with action to become a roaring blaze. WHO is your role model for physical aliveness? For emotional health, joy, and passion? For loving connection? WHO is your role model for financial abundance? For earning your way free, for earning your living doing something you love, or learning to love the thing you do to earn a living?
It all starts with the first hour of the day, your “diamond hour.” If you are dealing with anxiety and negative emotion, THIS is where you start. What are you feeding your mind and heart? Your body has a “reset” button called the “Neuro immuno endocrine response” — second wind. And if you are off balance emotionally, stepping through this barrier while in dynamic postures while visualizing and speaking positives interrupts the negative patterns BEAUTIFULLY.
Remember the “persuasion pattern” we’ve discussed?
- Establish rapport (self love)
- Interrupt negative pattern (shift attention, language, or physiology)
- Connect new behavior to your desired result.
And here, I plead with you not to interpret Buddhist philosophy through a filter of Christian guilt. Ask if you REALLY believe life is suffering, such that if you remove suffering THERE IS NO LIFE. Do you really? Dig deep. Your entire life is at risk here.
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Wake up in the morning and smile. For no reason at all. Then find a reason: “what do I have to smile about? What do I have to be grateful for?” Then build that to “what actions can I take today that will lift me up?” and then “and once awake and alive, WHO can I serve in the world? Who can I give joy to, and how can I help them to escape suffering?”
If you will go from a simple smile to finding gratitude to thinking of how you can be of service, then rise and make your body alive, preferably while listening to something positive.
Your first hour of the day belongs to YOU. And if you can steal just five minutes a day back from the demons who tell you your life belongs to them…you can set a goal that by your birthday next year, or the year after that, you will have control of that first hour.
And the more important it is that you serve others, the more CRITICAL it is to care for yourself, to have that abundance of physical aliveness, emotional love and gratitude, and faith in the future.
These are the gifts you have to give those who cannot give it to themselves. And you should NOT get down in the water and drown with them. Get your feet on solid ground…and throw them a life preserver. And say “this way to solid ground!”
And trust me: the ones who scream your positivity is “toxic” are the ones who need you most of all. Your energy can break their pattern, if you can show them a safe path to the shore.
Dance. Laugh. Love. Thrive. Share.
This is how we save the world. But remember to save yourself first.
Namaste
Steve