Student: When I woke up today I was kind of feeling a little grumpy, a little weird.

Soulaire: Yeah. I’ve had that day before.

Student: What to you do?

Soulaire: One of the things I’ve learned when I wake up, just got out of bed, and I don’t know why, but everything bugs me, everybody pisses me off and I don’t even how why I’m feeling that way. My biggest awareness, in all that, is that I’m sitting here trying to just get up. You have to get your feet on the floor, then you go to the bathroom, do all these things and the whole time feeling like “rrraaa”.
What I’ve realized is okay, so what did I do this morning? What is it? So, sometimes when I’m feeling that way I don’t want to do my EDPA, I don’t want to sit here and do my spiritual practice, I don’t want to do that stuff. “Rrrraaa.” It’s very funny how the universe will bring you things that remind you that you’re in a bad mood.

It seems like, all of a sudden, I’m sitting there and my boss is barking at me, and they’re in a bad mood. I kind of thought maybe it was contagious because all of a sudden it wasn’t just me being in a bad mood, it was my employees being in a bad mood and somebody was crabbing. I finally realized, as I was sitting there, “Oh my God, what am I doing to change me?”

Okay, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but did I really do things that said “I can change this? I can change how I’m feeling.” What was really interesting, I had a young man who came up to me… “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The doorbell rings and I was just like, “What do you want?” Like that. And here’s this bright, blue eyed smiling kid who is out selling magazine subscriptions or whatever. He’s just beaming. He’s so happy. I’m like, oh, God, a salesman.
He just kept smiling at me and he goes, “Hi ma’am.”
I go, “Yeah, I’m not interested in buying any magazines or anything like that.”
He goes, “Oh, that’s okay. I just thought I’d see if somebody was home.”
I said, “Well, I’m not interested.”
He said, “That’s okay.”

He was very upbeat even though I just shot him down before he even told me what the hell he was selling really, but I knew. The funny thing was he all of a sudden started to walk away but he stopped, turned to look at me and goes, “I hope you have a better day.”

So, he even could tell that I was in a crabby mood, right? I looked at him and I thought, “huh.”
So, I went inside and I realized I hadn’t done all the things I normally do in the morning that get me out of the funk. I went up and sat there, and of course my partner looks at me and goes, “Are you all right?”
I’m like, “Rrrrr.” So I was still in that grumpy mood. But, I kept remembering those blue eyes, that big smile. Do you know what I mean? I thought, “Wow, he wished that I had a better day.” So, then I realized he was holding for me to have a better day and he didn’t take it personally that I had already rejected him. I’m sure he’s been rejected all up and down the street. Most of those young people are.

I thought about it and I thought wow, he chose not to accept my grumpiness. I thought, wow, that’s pretty powerful. I realized I have done that before myself. I’ve seen someone who is having a crappy day, and I haven’t and I walked up and said, “Hi, how are you?” They’re like, “Rrrrr.” I remember when I got kind of barked at, I just remember sitting there and being very pleasant and very nice and I chose not to accept the gift.

Sometimes we accept gifts and if I’m getting out of bed and I’m sharing with people I live with, it’s probably not a good thing. You teach yourself and you teach others. You don’t have to accept the gift.
I always think of the story of the Dali Lama. Somebody was being rude and stuff and the person didn’t understand why the Dali Lama was still in a such a good place after being kind of confronted and people were being rude to him. The Dali Lama turned this person, cause the person said, “I have just been rude to you, how can you just sit here and be in a good place?

The Dali Lama said, “What happens if someone tries to offer you a gift but you refuse to accept it?”
The person said, “Well, I would have to keep the gift.”

The Dali Lama said, “Right. That stuck with me, so I realized that he was just showing me he didn’t accept the gift. I don’t have to accept the gift. I don’t have to accept the gift when I wake up in the morning. If I’m waking up in a bad mood, I don’t need to figure out why I’m in a bad mood, I’m just in a bad mood. Now I have to say to myself, “All right, you’re in a bad mood, what are you going to do about it?” Right?
Well, you need to surround yourself with people that are going to look at you and go, “Sit down. We need to talk because it seems like you’re upset.” So, my theory in life is that if I want to share good, you want the gift, but if I’m in a bad place are you going to want it? You have a choice.

The idea is to stop accepting the choice of a bad mood. I have to learn that when I woke up that way I chose to be in a bad mood, and I didn’t have to because it’s all…my…choice. So, I choose today, as I wake up in the morning, to have a beautiful, wonderful day and I share it as much as I can with people around me. That is really the goal to life. Be kinder than a person that’s not kind because the world needs more of it. So that’s what I do now.

That young man out there if he’s listening to this, you changed my day. Thank you.