Good Morning!!

Today is technically Thursday, but it’s MY FRIDAY! (one of the many reasons I chose the grad school that I am attending…NO CLASS FRIDAYS!!) And while I don’t have class tomorrow, finals start next week so I will most likely be locked in the dungeon–er, I mean library all weekend 🙂

My class doesn’t start until 9:30 today, but I got up at 7:30 so that I could have a cup of coffee, listen to music while I was getting ready (my “getting ready” consisted of no shower, not combing my hair, a ponytail, gym clothes, and a little mascara so that I don’t look dead. go me!)

While I was decided which playlist to listen to this morning, I got excited for the contents of the one that I had picked and I took a moment to stretch while I listened to the first couple of songs. I closed my eyes, reached for the sky, touched my toes, and I may or may not have turned into Carrie Underwood for a few minutes when “Cowboy Casanova” came on. I was laughing, I was smiling, I was enjoying living right there in that very moment at 7:30 in the morning. I was at peace.

I can’t stress how important it is to find the things in life that bring you peace and chase them, capture them, hold them so closely to your heart that you will have access to that peace even when the stormiest storms roll through your life. Finding “peace” doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. You don’t have to stop a war, win an award, or even tell anyone else what it is that you are doing. Your peace is between you and the beat of your heart.

I heard a quote a few days ago that has stuck with me since the moment I read it:

“Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.”

I love this. I love everything about it. I love the power that comes along with having control of our own mindset, our own voice, our own peace. Perhaps you find peace by writing your thoughts down on paper. Maybe you feel the most peace while pounding a punching bag, or pounding the pavement on a run. Maybe you feel the most peace by simply doing nothing at all, and just being, something that so many of us have nearly forgotten how to do. Whatever it is that brings you peace, hold onto it.

Wake up 10 minutes earlier each morning to start your day by finding your peace. Take a break from a stressful situation and bring yourself back to your own peace of mind. It sounds like such an easy concept, but it is also so easily forgotten in times of trial and anguish. It is so easy to let our peace escape us, and allow our emotions or external world get the best of us. But from this day forward, tell yourself that you are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful, inside and out. And you have an inner peace that no person, no thing, no event, can shake.

Happy Thursday!!