Oh Michael Scott…how I have missed you.  Thank you to a friend who posted you on Facebook as it reminded me of my love for you and your fellow colleagues.  So here we are having tea….chatting…on a Monday….that has been known here in Boston as the snow day of the week for the past three weeks.  In our last chat The Disrespected Art of Being we talked about the very clear difficulty people seem to have with slowing down.  Despite that continuing to be the case, Mother Nature keeps saying “ya you want to continue to run the rat race, well then I will just give you snow and more snow and more snow until you will submit to the fact that you WILL NOT be able to go
anywhere never mind how fast or slow you go.”  Although despite her mindful words of wisdom it does appear that some people are continuing to be required to keep moving despite there being little to no subway service and the Mayor asking people to stay home if they can.  We are a stubborn bunch; us humans.  Now you will not be getting any kind of lecture about how humanity is coming to a grinding halt as we crash into the brick wall.  We already covered that in our last chat listed above.  Today we will talk about embracing the proverbial Groundhog.  You know that fuzzy little creature that came out a week ago to tell us that we had six more weeks of winter?  Well I am not specifically talking about him but more specifically about his movie debut starring the one and only Bill Murray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCG2AwzTxA.

Yes, you remember, how could you forget?  Bill Murray the amazing comedian/actor extraordinaire who basically put humor to an experience that most New Englanders know all to well….especially this year.  But one of the things that makes this movie most enjoyable is not his continuous ranting about things being the same but instead his embracing and having fun within the insanity of it all.  And that folks is what we will talk about today…..

How do you embrace the groundhog?  When life is feeling like it is only giving you lemons over and over and over again…how DO you turn them into lemonade.  It would seem that children and dogs have found the answer to this age old question in a way that adults will continuously ponder forever.  The storms landing on Mondays have posed difficulties for me in one way and gifts in another.  As you will see if you were a part of our chat last week, my part time job does not honor slowing down therefore should I be on a day when I would be there I would be required to hurry to get to a place where no one would be.  Instead, I have a loss of income but I have a gain in my sanity.  Yesterday, I made an executive decision to stay home instead of going to a training that I had pre-registered for in order to decrease the insanity in my ;life.  Doing so made me ponder how much this weather has made decisions making simple and clear.  When the elements are such that they pose a threat to your safety you can a) give them the middle finger and tell people you are a hearty New Englander and are used to this or b) sub comb  to the elements and work with them rather than against.  Priorities become very clear.  Do you have a parking space? yes Do you have food for soup? yes Do you have stuff to make your super yummy hot chocolate? yes.  Check all is done.  While I have not been the cheeriest version of myself lately, I can say that I have been able to up my self care and not push myself beyond what I feel I can handle.  This is a big check on the plus side of the columns for me.  It feels a bit like I have been thrown back in time when people moved with the earth rather than against it.  That is not to say that I have not been frustrated, irritable, had cabin fever and felt like it was high time I thought about NOT being a Bostonian.  But it is to say that today I woke up and wondered what it might be like to totally surrender completely to what is happening in the here and now.  What might it be like to just live with full acceptance of what is happening and realize that it is not happening to harm you but more to help you?

Embracing the groundhog to me today would mean that I work purposefully on bringing more positivity and levity back into my life. Last week saw intensely challenging travels to work and back for most in Boston.  This week will be no better; in fact it could be worse.  How can I rise to the occasion and embrace, maybe even have fun, within the current situation at hand?  I am would venture to say that if I made a conscious intention in that direction it would have a more positive outcome than consciously putting out there how much I hate walking in this snow, how much my body aches and how much the snow is getting in the way of me living a happy, joyous and free existence.  How can I start that today?  Well back to Michael Scott up above, I will be grateful I was reminded of this skit from The Office and resume watching some of the episodes on Netflix to remind me of how much humor makes everything really OK.  I can work towards feeling the collective energy of everyone in this all together rather than taking any part of the situation personal.  I will be grateful for the time that I do go out to shovel as it will be the only exercise I will have gotten in a couple of days!  And I will remind myself of our last chat….there is beauty in stillness.  Moments pass so quickly.  Before we know it the snow will be gone and we will be on the next thing that is driving us crazy.  You can spend your time chasing the things that aggravate you or you can choose consciously to focus on love and beauty.  It’s your choice and the outcome is all yours.  Don’t even bother trying to blame it on the external because you have the power to make that choice for yourself.  As a line in one of my fav books says “your car goes where your eyes go.”  Watch where you put your energy today and embrace the groundhog as he only comes around once a year!

Cheers!