Monday, 4/13/20: Talking about a visualization exercise, eating too many sweets and re-reading childhood books

Happy Monday!

It’s a new week, which means it’s time for your next Monday motivation newsletter. Read on below for some steps to a happier Monday, a short story and a roundup of positive thoughts to get your week started.

Three Steps to a Happier Monday

Each newsletter starts with three prompts to inspire gratitude and simple intention setting. Take a moment and jot down answers to these three questions. To give an example, I share my answers below.  

Step 1: What are three things I appreciated from the weekend? 

Step 2: What is one thing I can be excited about today?

Step 3: What is my intention for this week? 

GRATITUDE: What a weekend! Hard to pick just three… I am thankful for spending my birthday with family, all the friends I was able to text/FaceTime/Zoom with and running a new PR on my birthday. 

TODAY: I am most excited about finishing the book I’m currently reading. I am completely sucked in and plan on waking up early because I need to see how this story ends. More on this book below!

INTENTION: After an indulgent weekend with a few too many sweets, I am ready to get back on track. Focusing on making healthy meals at home this week.

Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂

Lesson of the Week: A “Re-gnosis” 

Have you ever heard of a “RE-gnosis”? 

Not a “prognosis.” A re-gnosis.

I had not heard of it either. And I’m not completely sure if it is even a technical concept, but I came across the idea in this article while perusing Grace’s weekend reading roundup.

The article paints a thoughtful and optimistic image of what a post-COVID 19 world could look like by doing something called a re-gnosis. Different than a prognosis, a re-gnosis looks back on today from the future. In this instance, the author of the article imagined what we would be feeling as we looked back on today six months from now.

Sound strange? Maybe a little. But there appears to be some benefits. As the article says, 

“Why does this kind of ‘from the future scenario’ seem so irritatingly different from a classic forecast? This is related to the specific properties of our sense of the future. 

When we look ‘into the future’, we typically only see the dangers and problems coming towards us that pile up onto insurmountable barriers. Like a locomotive coming out of the tunnel that runs over us. This fear barrier separates us from the future. That’s why horror futures are always the easiest to depict.

RE-gnosis, on the other hand, forms a loop of knowledge in which we include ourselves and our inner change in the future. We connect internally with the future, and this creates a bridge between today and tomorrow. A form of ‘Future Mind’ is created.”

I was intrigued. And coupled with the fact that I read this on Saturday (which was my 26th birthday), I was interested in imagining what it would be like at the halfway point of the year I am about to embark on. Spoiler alert: it was a really fun exercise. 

I know we are all experiencing many stressful and anxious feelings about the future right now. I hope the next time you find yourself with those thoughts, you consider giving this “re-gnosis” exercise a try. This exercise helped to calm me a bit and give me hope for the future. I hope it does the same for you.

To help you get started, I listed the questions I personally asked myself while doing this on Saturday and some of the thoughts that crossed my mind.  

I started by asking myself the following questions:

What am I doing six months from now? 

What am I surprised by?

What am I amazed by? 

And here are some of the thoughts that followed: 

Six months from now would be Sunday, Oct. 11. Because it’s a Sunday, I’m writing this newsletter. I can visualize myself doing so at my favorite Starbucks’ window spot.

I’m surprised that I now know the names of the baristas that work Sundays. I cherish these everyday type of connections and I find myself deliberately taking out my AirPods when placing my order instead of rushing through the motions to get back to whatever I’m listening to.

I’m surprised at the slight change in my spending habits. A little less money on materialistic items/expenses and little more set aside for a rainy day fund. 

I’m amazed at the closeness I feel to friends and family spread all over the country. I know proximity and closeness do not have to be correlated and it’s possible maintain strong connections from afar with intention and technology. I now have items on my social calendar like a virtual book club with friends from college, the occasional virtual happy hour with my extended family and the new tradition of a birthday video chat with high school friends. I’m amazed that today on Oct. 11, I can sense the changing of the seasons, and for the first time, I welcome this change. I used to fear endings or disruptions to my day-to-day routine, but my mind is too preoccupied with remembering a summer filled with precious memories like a trip to Pennsylvania to see my grandma, time spent drinking wine on rooftops with friends and traveling out of town to visit people. 

Plus, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that while there’s always going to endings, there’s always going to be beginnings too. Something else is always on the horizon. There’s always hope.

Looking back on last April, I want to tell myself that I’ll find meaning and purpose in the pause. I want to tell myself that life will get back to a “new normal” and until it does, enjoy the time with family, find moments of joy among the stressful times and dream about what’s next. 

On My Monday Radar

Sometimes we just aren’t ready to jump into our Monday to-do list right away. In case you want some content to procrastinate with, here is a roundup of a few positive things on my radar:  

• Today’s newsletter almost didn’t happen because I couldn’t stop reading this book. I’m reading And Then She Was Gone for my first virtual book club and my goodness… my friends weren’t lying when they gushed about how good it was! I typically don’t read thriller genre books, but if you are in a reading rut or want a good distraction, pick this one up. You get sucked in quickly and won’t be able to put it down!
• Consider learning something new with Coursera. I had not heard of Coursera until my mom told me about this weekend. It is a library of courses from top instructors at world-class universities and companies. If learning a new skill is something you are interested in during this quarantine, an online course could be perfect! This free one sounds so interesting to me. 
• Ann Patchett on Why We Need Life-Changing Books Right Now. I enjoyed this article from Ann Patchett, author of books like Commonwealth, Bel Canto and most recently, The Dutch House. Ann raves about Kate DiCamillo’s children’s fiction books and makes the argument that now’s the time to read these types of books as they can have a surprising calming effect. Personally, I know I cannot go through a book like Kate’s Because of Winn-Dixie again, but it did make me wonder if there were any books I wanted to revisit from my childhood as a fun and satisfying break for my mind. 
• ‘Trolls’ stars surprise the kids of a COVID-19 first responder far from home. Because we all need something happy this Monday. Loved this sweet story! 

That’s all for today! I hope you found something in today’s newsletter that sparked motivation, made you smile or inspired a positive Monday thought. Don’t underestimate the power of starting small… a fulfilling week starts with just one fulfilling day. You’ve got this! 

Let’s make it a great Monday!
Megan

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