JUST FOR TODAY. It’s how each of the five reiki principles begin: ‘Just for today’ – I will not worry, I will not anger, and so on. It’s also the mantra of many in the recovery and 12-step community, focusing diligently on staying sober from their addiction one day at a time.
It’s a simple mantra to help get us through a situation for which a permanent or forever commitment might seem daunting.
When we might feel like saying the following about whatever the routine or habit we are trying to either create or break:
~ I’m NEVER AGAIN going to [do whatever it is we want to stop or avoid – e.g. eating sugar, drinking alcohol, spending the evening watching cat videos, etc.]
Or
~ Going forward EVERDAY I WILL [whatever we desire as our new routine, e.g. writing a page in our journal every single night, meditating or exercising for Xmin per day, etc.]
…these new commitments and endeavours are valuable and for some – they stick from that point forward.
But sometimes there comes a day when we might falter: we get sick, or our day is just too full to include our new habit or whatever we’d committed to ourselves that we would do each day, OR we end up doing the thing we’d decided we’d never do again – and we can feel like a failure, perhaps thwarting our efforts to continue.
More times than I can count I’ve decided to creating a new – or break an old – routine or habit, saying: from this point forward, every day I will (or will not) – do X, only to miss a day and then feel bad about it.
Two things have helped me:
~ one is to make the commitment so small that it is hard not to keep, e.g. not writing a whole page in my journal everyday, but perhaps writing 3 sentences, or instead of exercising for 30min, just exercise or stretch for 5min, etc.
~ the other is to simply add JUST FOR TODAY to whatever it is. This takes the ‘forever’ or ‘never’ absolute away from whatever it is, and allows me to feel a sense of accomplishment for that day.
See how it feels for you.
Or maybe even the whole day feels like too much of a commitment.
Then try adjusting it to a smaller increment of time: JUST FOR THE NEXT HOUR.
Or: JUST FOR THE NEXT 5 MINUTES.
Or simply: JUST FOR THIS MOMENT.
All the 5min increments, the moments, the todays – they all add up just the same.
If you falter, just start again in this moment or on the very next day.
Wishing you a day of feeling a sense of accomplishment about all the wins in your life – large and small – just for today. ❤