Tiny Transitions

Today’s yoga wisdom was about tiny transitions.  Tiny shifts or changes that can make a big impact on your yoga practice, your life and your happiness.  Her point was that sometimes it's the little things that make a difference--more than you'd think.  Everyone is always thinking BIG...but tiny is good too.

I’ve been pondering that all day.  Sometimes changing just small little things in your life CAN make such a big difference in your overall happiness.  I’m not even sure I have an example.  Wait, yes I do.  This really is a silly example, but I’m going to use it anyway because it illustrates the point (sort of.) 

We have a big hairy dog, Milo.  He’s not horribly stinky, and that’s just mostly because he is lazy and doesn’t go outside much so he doesn’t get dirty and wet often.  But he’s a dog, and generally speaking, they give off a doggy smell.  I almost always notice it when I walk into someone’s house that has a dog, because while YOU the dog owner might get use to the dog smell, other people coming over haven’t.   Anyway, I think of my doggy-house-smell on a regular basis…basically whenever I notice that Milo is indeed, a little smelly.

So recently I decided to stop hating on the dog smell and do something about it (something more than lighting a candle here or there).  I bought myself a new fancy air diffuser that sits in a little corner in the entry way right before the living room. You barely notice it because it’s tucked to the side of a entry table and it’s small.  I bought one with a timer, so it goes off for a number of hours when I hit the button.  Now, when I get up in the morning and walk thru the entry way, I hit the button.  My house smells AWESOME now, all the time.  I’ve got some yummy Nest diffuser oil that smells heavenly and it makes me happy every time I smell it.  

So I guess my point is only this.  I spent a lot of little milliseconds thinking about the stinky dog issue with negative energy, and those are gone now and replaced with something so simple that makes me happy. Is it subtle?  Of course.  We’re talking about a diffuser, nothing of consequence I realize.  Yet still, it adds something nice to my day and it took little money or energy to make the shift.  It was more just the small intention to change it up, and not run the same stupid negative dialogue in my head.  And before you wonder how it is I'm sitting around obsessing about my dog issues, I'm not really (at least intentionally), but I think I read somewhere that 90% of our thoughts are actually repetitive--we don't even NOTICE it.  Those silly stupid things that run around in a loop in your head, that involuntarily pop up whether you like it or not.  Like seeing a coaster on your coffee table that you actually hate but haven't gotten around to changing.  Every time you look at that coaster, that thought is there involuntarily.  Remove the coaster, remove the thought.  Replace with a beautiful coaster you love, create a new happy thought loop.

So now I’m going to try to make a list of some other small subtle transitions I can make in my life that either make me happy, or align me closer to where I want to go somehow (oh yeah, I have to figure that out too.)  I do believe that life is in the details, and that's definitely true with yoga too.  

I will conclude by saying, I’m also very grateful today for the tiny thing called hair scrunchies.  Who isn’t just over the moon that these silly little things came back into “du jour” and now we can get cute ones all the time?  They are SO much more comfortable than rubber bands. I’m particularly sweet on the new polka dotted ones from Pretty Simple.  Cute right?  

 

Signed, ME {lv}

Comments

[Cara]

Inquiring minds want to know which air diffuser you got! 💚