The Choice. Day 5

Five o' clock. PM. At six thirty I have to get myself off to Manjushri, there's a new study class starting.

This is the end of the work day I guess. I'm going to have to accept the small actions I've done today as enough.

Thing is that the day started badly. Since March, due to Covid stopping my work and making it necessary to leave my house in Brighton to live near my husband in the Lake District, I've been reliant on husband Walkabout for company. I don't have any close friends up here. When he goes off to work for the day, I spend the week by myself except for online interactions. Which is fine. We get up, make coffee, and chat until he leaves.

This morning I woke suddenly, disorientated. I could smell coffee. It was already 8.40am. I ran downstairs, "What's going on? Why didn't you wake me?"

"I thought you would like to sleep in."

I'm usually calm but suddenly I was angry, disappointed.

"You had coffee without me."

"It's not a big thing, Romany. I just thought you would prefer to sleep."

I went back upstairs to get dressed, surprised at how upset I was.

Figuring it out, I realised how much I had come to rely on John's company, on our usually happy teamwork. Just one little blip like this in these strange times was enough to throw me off balance.

That's not good, I thought.

Making my own coffee, I looked again at my anger. I make delicious homemade spelt bread loaf with cinnamon, walnuts and raisins. It takes a couple of hours to make and the loaves are only small. Walkabout has a slice every morning with peanut butter and strawberry jam.

My angry, spiteful mind said. 'I'm not baking him any more bread.'

There is a book by Edith Eger called The Choice that I've been meaning to read.

I obviously needed to read it today.

I want to act from love, not spite or anger.

Before I started on the book, I measured out oats, sunflower seeds, raisins, cinnamon, yeast, walnuts and flour.

I will make that bread.

I started reading at 9am and was still reading at 2pm. It's an excellent, page turning book.

I don't need to finish the book though to remember that I have a choice.

We may not have control over what happens to us but we can choose how to react.

On social media and particularly on LinkedIn, I follow a lot of therapists and coaches. I don't want to be a coach myself, but I'd really like those coaches to read my book so they might recommend it to their clients.

A little anger is a good thing. I had given myself a good talking to and got over my anger from the ridiculous 'injury' of being left to sleep, but I still had enough to compose a post on LinkedIn, clearly asking health professionals to read my book.