How To Learn To Love Getting Up Each Day

Photo: swordofthespirit.net

I can remember as a boy hating to get up each morning for school. Hating to get up was part of my daily routine. My mother yelling, ‘Get up! Wake up!’ to push me out of bed was part of that routine. Dragging myself to breakfast and then mindlessly to school, and late every day, were also a part of the daily routine.

I hated getting up.

The only day of the week when I willingly woke up on my own, without dragging, without having to be yelled at or pushed in any way, was on Sunday – the day I went to church.

Every Sunday I woke up early, energized, excited, and eager to go to church, to be at church with the God I imagined waited for me there. I’d spring up out of bed before anyone else was awake, dress myself on my own, and go – alone. I’d walk to church relishing the silence on those early Sunday mornings when the South Bronx still slept. I’d hear birds I never heard any other morning. I was walking in my passion, in my purpose, not realizing I was.

I loved getting up.

To get up or not to get up, that is the question. And it’s a great way of diagnosing our life-condition.

I’ve heard it said a number of times for years by various speakers and teachers and for years it had no meaning for me – that when we are doing what we love each day, when we are pursuing a possibility powered by passion and purpose, by vision, we will get up energized and excited to meet the new day.

When I’m not actively pursuing my passion or my purpose, it’s different for me. I become miserable, moody, filled with melancholy. Then, to benumb my sensibilities so as not to feel what I’m feeling, I sit, I lie, I hide, I complain, I avoid, I deny, I curse, I criticize, I fault-find, I excuse, I rationalize, I wish, I reject, I retract, I recoil….and then I repeat….each day….every day.

However, I have a choice. I can choose.

I can choose to go through the motions each day, dragging myself through life and dragging the world down with me.

Or I can choose to align myself with my Self and energize my life with the rocket-fuel of my passion, my purpose, and my possibilities. I alone make that choice for myself. Only I.

And when I choose to get up and engage my path of personal power then the world is empowered and enlivened with me. The world, the world I create through declaration and action, flexes and molds itself along the contours of my desires, dreams, and destiny.

When we align ourselves with the genesis of our being; when we are clear what our passion and purpose are according to our inner-visions; when we take the first step, and then the next and the next with faith and focus; when we are willing to face the challenges that meet us on our journey to self-realization; when we are determined to do whatever it takes to live a transformed life; then we will complete the first act of each day, the act of getting up, with a zest and drive that whisper to us in those first early moments each day, ‘You are on the right path. You are on your path.’

Listen to your first thoughts when you wake up each day. What is your very first thought? What are the thoughts you wake up with each morning? These will give you clues whether you are on your path or not.

Listen to your feelings when you wake up each day. How do you feel? How do you feel emotionally? How does your body feel? What about your energy level? Would you describe the way you feel as positive, optimistic, and energized? Or do you feel negative, pessimistic, and enervated?

What do you love? What do you imagine? What do you believe?

What do you focus on? What do you tune in to? What do you tune out?

What do you want? What do you remember? What do you envision?

What motivates you? What drives you? What excites you?

The answers to these questions, and there are many more questions to ask, will, if acted upon, make getting up each day a new experience every day.

Each day begins not when the sun rises; each day begins when you rise.

Make getting up every day a new experience each day.

Live each day without precedent.

Get up!

Blessings