There are mornings on which you wake up and everything hurts. Sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s physical. Usually it’s both.

The alarm is barking at you. Opening your eyes feels like a curse. You burrow deeper into your pillows and blankets to escape. The soft cool sheets feel like a lingering hug of a long lost lover, but it’s too late. You’re awake. Now the choice is whether you’re going to stay in bed, awake, or get up. You start bargaining.

I need this to stop. If it could just stop for a few minutes, I’ll totally get so much done today. I need some peace. Please. I’ll start working out. TODAY. And I won’t eat anything greasy. I won’t text that asshole, although it would be nice to … NO, no. I won’t text. I will remain positive, and keep positive, healthy people around me. I’ll MEDITATE. Do some yoga.  How about that? That would be nice.  If this could just stop for a minute, please.

The negotiations fail. You hit snooze on your alarm, roll over slowly and try to go back to sleep for exactly 9 minutes.

After hitting the snooze button no less than 2 more times, you take a breath and stare at the ceiling. It’s time to do this. You just need a reason to get up; something that is more potent than the pain.

You could do it out of spite. Give your pain the middle finger and go fucking jogging if you want. Anger is a great motivator. It almost works. But what kind of person are you, doing things out of anger? That would take too much energy. You don’t have that energy to spare.

Excitement takes just as much energy, so you can’t use that. There’s nothing to be excited about – nothing as exciting as staying in bed.

Obligation? Yes. You have loads. There are errands to run, pets to feed, work, family, that book you were going to read …. It can all wait. One of the pitfalls of being a single adult is that no one’s going to scream at you if you don’t get your own errands done. Well, not today.

Suddenly the disgust hits, and you realize you’ve been lying in bed in the same position long enough that THAT hurts too.

Now you have your motivation. Pain. It’s as reliable as the sun rising in the east, but much less pretty. You sit up. Here you go. One, two, three … left foot, right foot, you’re brushing your teeth now, taking your pills. The shower feels pretty good. You bend over and touch your toes while the water massages your lower back ever so gently.

I’m okay now. It’ll be okay. Today is do-able. What am I going to do?

You need a Happy Thought, and your mind stalls. Your Happy Thought will be your direction, and you’ve gone through all of this to get out of bed so your direction needs to have Purpose. It says something about you, this Happy Thought. We all make these decisions every day to pull us through our lives.

You got up. You kicked that morning’s ass. You’re out of the shower now, and you can do anything. Anything you want, because you overcame the morning, and now this day will be worth the effort. That’s your Happy Thought.

And so it goes.