Hello everyone and welcome to another mindful moment Monday.
There is a phrase or an idiom that says don't upset the apple cart.
And basically what this means is to not upset or change the way things are done or don't mess up or ruin carefully laid plans.
And we all have an apple cart.
So today we're going to do a little visualization and practicing what happens when our apple cart is tipped over.
What do we do next?
So as you settle in,
Let's take a deep breath in.
Noticing your breath.
Checking in with your body.
And just becoming present in this moment.
What's in your cart?
Did you have plans for the year?
Vacations?
Goals?
Events?
What precious item did you fill in your cart?
And what do we do when life happens?
And all of your proverbial apples,
All those events and ideas and vacations get upset and all of those apples get tipped over.
Common reactions could be anger,
Frustration,
Confusion,
Disappointment,
Unrest,
Irritation,
Annoyance,
Just to name a few.
But even when our apple cart gets tipped over,
We always have a choice in our response to the event.
So let's practice inviting choice and allowing what is.
Let's practice not disrupting our internal apple cart.
So take another deep breath.
And let's envision a beautifully filled apple cart with the apples neatly piled high,
Shiny red and green,
Maybe yellow apples,
Whatever are your favorite.
Just imagine this nice big pile and feeling expectant,
Excited,
Eager with all those ideas and plans that you have for those apples.
And let's pick up our apple cart or wheelbarrow,
Whatever those apples are in.
And as you see the path before you,
Let's wander down that path with our apples and just noticing what kind of day it is and everything seems to be perfect,
Just as it's meant to be.
And as we go along our path,
Life happens.
We hit a bump in the road and those apples go spilling and tumbling everywhere over the ground.
Maybe we hit a rock.
Maybe there was a hole in the road.
Whatever happens,
It is what it is.
And as we look at that cart being tipped over and our apples being scattered,
We've watched them fall.
Observe your reaction.
What do you feel in this moment?
Let the surprise be what it is.
Shock,
Disruption.
Breathe deeply into what you're feeling and let it go.
There has been a change to your carefully laid plans.
Maybe you just chuckle and shake your head in disbelief.
Maybe you feel sadness,
Irritation or annoyance.
But see if you can just welcome the experience and what it is.
And as you see all those apples before you scattered everywhere,
Possibly damaged,
Dirty,
What will you do next?
Let's take a deep breath in.
Again,
Feeling into your body and exhale,
Just letting go.
Here is where we can invite choice into our unexpected challenge.
Will you leave the mess and keep going?
Will you ignore what just happened and storm away feeling irritated or sad?
Will you leave the apples and decide to go get more?
Will you fill your apple cart once again,
Picking up the pieces,
Picking up the apples one by one?
Maybe during this process,
You notice that some of them were less than stellar.
Maybe a couple of them aren't meant for human eating.
So maybe as you pick them up,
Maybe you decide to leave some of them for the birds and the squirrels and the worms or whatever other critters are nearby.
Maybe in doing so,
You only pick up the best looking apples or the biggest or maybe the ones that are best suited for what you first had planned.
Maybe you see someone nearby that doesn't have any apples and you decide to share a few of them with them.
Maybe you sit down with your back against the cart and just take a minute to laugh at the situation or shake your head in disbelief.
And maybe you pick up an apple to snack on while you let your body rest and decide what it is you'll do next.
Maybe you'll leave the cart and not do anything with the apples and just let it be what it is,
Shrugging,
Laughing and walking away.
Maybe you'll pick up your cart,
Put a few apples in,
Leave the rest,
Share a couple and then go along your way as if it wasn't too much of an ordeal or too much of a problem.
When we get disrupted in life,
When we're caught off guard,
We have options.
Maybe in our external world we may not like the options that we have or obviously maybe it wouldn't be our first choice.
But we do have choice.
When we pause and take a breath,
We realize we have a choice in how we react or how we respond.
And just because our cart gets tipped over in our external world,
We still have agency over our internal world and our internal apple cart.
Things may not go the way they were supposed to go.
It's true that life happens and we get tripped up.
And as we pick up our apples,
It may be a practice of patience,
Of letting go of what was and accepting what is.
And as most of us have experienced,
Things are not always as they appear.
Just like when maybe you were picking up those apples and you found out that some of them were different than you thought they were and maybe not appropriate anymore for what you intended.
And you might be surprised,
Pleasantly even,
By the experience.
Maybe in leaving some of the apples you've saved yourself some time and energy.
You've lightened your load.
Or maybe you were presented with an opportunity to shift the way you look at things.
Sometimes we never know why things happen in life,
Why things happen the way they do.
Our apple cart will get tipped over again and again and again.
This is the journey of life.
So let's take a deep breath together,
Accepting what is and letting go on the exhale.
Pausing when we experience an upset,
Breathing into this space,
Allowing what is.
We can practice patience before we choose our next step.
And we can keep our internal apple cart maybe a little chasselled but still upright.
And we can look at our apples all over the floor and all over the ground and realize that we could probably still make apple pie with some of those apples.
You could feed the creatures around you,
Nourish the soil with the apples that are on the ground.
So many choices.
So many options.
But the point to remember is that we have choice.
We always have choice in our response.
Whatever what your choice is,
It's okay.
There's no right choice.
There's no wrong decision.
It's just what we choose in this moment.
We can always choose again.
So let's take another deep breath in,
Pausing as we choose what we want to do with all these apples.
And I invite you to smile.
And today we're just going to let them be.
We're going to open our eyes and bring ourselves back into this present moment.
And we're going to choose to move on today with whatever it is that's challenging you in this moment.
And remember that you always have choice.
Wishing you well with all your apples.
May you be well,
My friends,
And have a beautiful day.
Wishing you well.
