I was all set to write a cute lil’ blog about a new woo-woo thing I found, and it was supposed to be upbeat but I’m so depressed today (Sunday), I can barely function. And as is usually the case when one is this way, I have no time for it. Also, though, I ask how one functions after you, already despondent, try to rescue a tiny spider by putting it outside and then accidentally shut the window down directly on it? That’s a thing that happened today, and I’ll let you figure out whether my big crying jag was before, during, or after this incident. But I don’t know what to do with myself after this startling, so here it is.

You may have noticed from previous entries that I have a tendency to embrace the more . . . esoteric? elements of the universe (universe!). Astrology, ghosts, witchcraft, yada yada (good God, what could that “yada yada” stand for?). I may have mentioned it here and there but I also am big into meditation and trying to be quiet and hear myself – which is not an easy feat, I’m assuming that’s why they call it a practice, but mostly it’s difficult because sometimes when you hear yourself you don’t particularly like what you hear.

With regular meditation, though, you find yourself not being so judgmental of the clear, pristine thoughts that start entering your head on whims – whims, or as I’d like to think of them, lil’ messages from What’s Out There. Still though, something . . . interesting and new happened to me a couple of weeks ago and in contemplation of it I’ll just type. We’ve all seen Hook, I mean if you’re over 30 anyway, and remember Julia Roberts’ superb Tinkerbell talking about “the place between sleep and awake, when you still remember what you’re dreaming.”

That is, of course, the absolute best part of any sleep, waking up without an alarm, one foot in dreamland, no hurry to reality if you’re lucky. And a couple of weeks ago, right there at that moment, a question popped into my head: “What do I need today?“

It felt very much out of nowhere, but I’d been meditating a lot and as I’ve been doing that for years I was used to sudden, clear thoughts popping up, but never a question and it was even more poppy-uppy than usual. “What a weird thing,” was my next thought, wholly not of nowhere, a regular thought I was thinking, and then, the most relaxed I’d probably be for the next . . . ever . . . I figured I’d better listen for the answer. And that first day, it was “Calm.”

This is all very weird, I know. But “calm” came as clearly as everything else, and once I wrangled myself out of my bed, I started about my business as usual. There was something different though: I’d feel myself making the decision of what to do next – very very small ones, like “Do I put in a load of laundry or do I unload the dishwasher?” – and that little quiet “calm” word would come back up. Very subtly, borderline subconsciously, I was choosing to go for the thing that reinforced that morning notion: What I needed today was calm, that’s how the day is framed.

I ended the day better, and curious. I decided I’d try asking myself that question, “What do I need today?” every morning, and see what happened. I approached it very much like a science experiment, assuming, to be honest, that that one time was just a lark. The next day I got “love,” and rather than updating a dating profile, I got back to friends I hadn’t spoken to in awhile, watched a tv show that I love so much it makes me ache and truly found The Feeling in more places than I would have, had I not gotten a direction to go in at the start of the day.

Remember what I said about not liking what yourself has to tell you sometimes? That was around Day 4, when I got “work.” I legit groaned. Who needs to work? Work is not air! Work is not sustenance or love! How do you go from “calm” and “love” to “work”? Barf. But I knew it was true. I had a ton of work to do, so much to get done – so, so much – and this was just another framing. When I had the choice to sit on my ass or accomplish something, I chose the latter, and by the end of the day, it irks me to say, yes, I felt amazing just as I had all the other days I listened to the answer. I needed to work to get rid of the anxiety.

I think there’s a lot about learning to listen to yourself out there, but I don’t know how much we give ourselves permission to ask the questions. I never really did. It’s just a little muscle I’m working now, and not to sound like an influencer, but I honestly think it’s worth trying. We let ourselves fall into helplessness, and most of the time it’s true – we really are helpless against a lot. But, I realized when I started “framing the day” that I have more control over getting what I need than I had previously thought.

I wish I could say all of this is a sure thing. My little “between sleep and awake” place today was terrible, and probably a large part of why I’m so skittish and sad right now. I dreamed about someone I loved a long time ago, and as we know, those types of dreams can go either way in terms of starting a day fabulously or . . . terribly. The latter for me, in case you couldn’t guess. And that’s how it goes, I guess. I won’t get a clear answer on what I need today, because my head is cloudy and and so is the sky and the house is too quiet, but luckily it’s days like these when the answer is clear anyway: gentleness. If you can’t do anything else, give yourself that.

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