Painting Myself into a Corner - Day One

Day One - Painting Myself into a Corner

I chose to blog about my journey doing the 28 days of practices in The Magic because I am determined to improve my life and can easily predict that I won’t complete them if I don’t go public. My life is already busy and full. Thus I reason the best way to ensure I follow through is to paint myself into a corner. It’s a technique I used back in 2001 with great success.

Ten years ago I wanted to be healthy enough to finish a marathon and didn’t know how. Although I hadn’t even walked a 5K I told my friends and family that I planned to walk the Portland Marathon in the fall. At that point the furthest I was able to walk was 4 miles on a treadmill, but come the first Sunday in October, I completed 26.2 miles upright and smiling. I joined a group called Portland Fit and trained for six months. It was my first of four marathons and three mini triathlons with them.

It occurs to me that I’m doing something very similar here. I’ve told everyone that I plan to start a blog and yet I don’t even read blogs. I have a very fuzzy idea of how to write one or what people want to hear. How personal should I get? How do you write about friends or acquaintances without alienating them? Do people want to hear the nuts and bolts of the practices and what I’m doing or simply how I’m reacting to what I’m doing?

Should I post a link for my Facebook friends or wait until I learn if I’m any good at this? Will I need to find a new job or move to another state at the end of the month? Honestly I’m totally flying by the seat of my pants at this point!

So here it is, the publication date for The Magic and time for me to start already. I read the introduction and Day One last night and am already trying to find a way to weasel out of this. I’m shocked to see that that I must complete the first day practice every morning for 28 days! The goal is to write down ten blessings in my life that I’m grateful for and why and then read them with feeling every morning. 

I reread the instructions; indeed they should be different every day! A quick calculation tells me I’ll need to come up with 280 different things that I’m grateful for. Obviously Rhonda Byrne thinks I’m more creative and grateful than I feel at the moment. It occurs to me that it would be far easier to come up with a list of 280 things I don't like. Obviously I am in dire need of the 28 day program.

Day One at least should be pretty easy so here's my initial list:

Blessings I am Grateful For:

Chatting on the phone with my daughter Bethany last night.

My sweet little Maizie dog who follows me from room to room.

Terms of endearment. (In recent weeks I've started calling most other women "my dear". I feel unusually old fashioned.)

Dangley earrings. (Now that I have a short pixie cut I have totally embraced striving to look more feminine.)

Listening to great music on my commute like Take Five.

Watching Finding Joe with Mandy, Patty, Alison and Pamela Sunday night and the lively discussion we had during and after including answering what is your bliss? (Singing for me of course!)


The colorful photos a coworker showed me yesterday of the Northern Lights at the site of an active volcano.

Doing a breathing visualization with Leah Saturday.

Stretching my brain by practicing playing two different melodies on the keyboard at the same time last night.

Watching part of the Wayne Dyer PBS special last night, when I wasn’t napping in my chair. (Which is due to my insomnia, not the dynamic Wayne Dyer!)

The brilliance of David York, our Choir Director at NTCSL who picks such great songs and often arranges the different parts.