That Sweet Spot

Don’t you love experiencing the “Goldilocks” sweet spot – that exactly right level of not too much, not too little, but just right?

Be it the weather temperature, your sleep amount, your food intake, your action/repose pace…The point that feels satisfying, enough but not overtaxing, just right is truly a sweet spot.

One of my favorite arenas to experience the Sweet Spot is in my daily work life. I like to be busy. I love my professional work as well as interacting with family, friends, and colleagues. I also like many aspects of keeping my household running.  I like having some appointments outside of my home. It’s a Sweet Spot day for me when I have just the right number of activities scheduled and up-and-running.

The Sweet Spot, however, gets tipped in both directions. That’s the principle, of course, of a mid-point – there are edges on either side of it that are the other ends of the spectrum. The contrast defines the ideal.

For my schedule Sweet Spot, days come along that are overloaded, and that can be hard. But frankly, I find those days preferrable to the days in which there isn’t much of anything on the agenda.

Believe me, I recognize (and have talked about in other muses) the life lessons for me of learning to be comfortable with – to even cherish – doing less, doing nothing. I’ve made progress with that lesson and continue to hold it consciously.

But this morning, when the day stretched out ahead of me sans scheduled activities, I felt a little lost. As I closed my eyes for my quiet sitting time at the start of the morning, I was actually a little uncomfortable with the layout of the day ahead.

Then, I heard this rise up in me:

“May I live this day well.”

I repeated it to myself, “May I live this day well” and felt a sense of equanimity begin to be restored within me. The realization came that however the day played out, however I lived my day, I could live it well.

I appreciated the quality “well.” This teaching, “live this day well,” didn’t demand that I live this day brilliantly, or productively, or even pleasingly. “Well” could connect with wellness as in well-being, with satisfaction (well-pleased), with consciousness (well-aware). The word “well” made me think of a water well, and I liked the image of a deep well filled with clean and pure water to nourish me.

And so I began my day, intending to live it well. To right my off-centered mood, I called and emailed a few friends for connection. It helped. To honor the beautiful weather, I sat in my yard and smelled the lilies of the valley. To check in with the Divine, I did an Akashic Records reading for myself.

A few hours past my initial “lost” feeling, I am now feeling well.

I am living this day well, and I am in a sweet, Sweet Spot.