Beat the Monday Morning Blues

All is Well. Why are Mondays so hard??? Especially when it’s your first day back to work after a vacation. There’s an anxiety that happens even if you love your job.  Why is that?!?  It’s a looming feeling of–What did I miss, and what do I need to do next?  There’s only one way to beat this…

Last week I took some time off to visit my aunt and enjoy family.  I went back to my roots in Arkansas–reconnecting in the space where my people come from. I spent summers in the country. Just to paint a picture, we drove 40 minutes just to get to the movie theater on a 2-lane highway with a lot of curves and deer on either side of the road.  Super rural.  We had to drive 90 minutes in the opposite direction to get to the airport.  For a city girl, this is remote.

But I have to tell you, I cannot remember a time I have been able to relax and unplug so completely.  Growing up I spent my summers there and so I reminisced on my childhood.  The lifestyle insists that you slow down and spend time with nature.  The railroad trains run through Main Street and stop you coming and going.  The time in the car isn’t wasted. It’s for seeing. The wide-open fields ready for different crops.  The southern sunshine, and star-filled moonlight which is different from the north, unencumbered by city lights and the haze of smog.  The random rainstorms that beat on the rooftop and sync with your own body rhythm. Thankfully, the mosquitos weren’t out yet.  I remember them too well.

As a kid I would fall asleep on these long country car rides, and my grandmother would say, “Wake up, you’re missing everything.”  Back then, each tree just looked like the next one tree to me.  Well I guess it took me 50 years, and she’s gone now, but I heard my grandmother again when I was riding in the backseat checking my Facebook.  “You’re missing everything!”  I looked up to the most beautiful sun setting over a huge field that was still glistening from yesterday’s thunderstorm.  I almost missed it. I put my phone away and enjoyed the ride, and discovered the beauty of it all.  Life slowed down.  I felt the soft blanket of peace and the love of my family, present and past.  Just so spectacular in its simplicity.

Now back to, MONDAY MORNING!  Did you feel it?  Were you yanked back into a world of fast-paced crazy politics, bills, deadlines and insecurities looming and slapping you in the face?  THIS is why we hate Mondays.  Just since my parents’ lifetime did culture explode into megacities, super industrialization and a worship of capitalism that can steal your peace and make you believe if you’re not stressing over something, you’re not prepared. We get in our own way by overthinking, overanalyzing, overEATING, and overmedicating. That calm lifestyle was everyone’s lifestyle just a generation ago.

So how do we Beat the Monday Morning Blues?  Here’s the secret… Mindful Presence.  When you slow down enough to bring yourself into the Present moment, like a country car ride, you realize that right here, right now, everything is ok.  All is well.  It takes practice to undo the conditioning…like daily affirmations.

Peace and wellbeing or that “vacation” mindset are your default biology.  Not the crazies!  We have gotten everything upside down.  That Monday morning anxiety is our bodies’ natural resistance to the unnatural. Like antibodies.  A soul resistance. Trust me, you can still be productive without the additional mania.  So on Monday morning, or all day every day, say it with me…All is well.

All is well. All. Is. Well. Be Mindful. UgottaEat.