Daily Affirmations

Today, you can choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood.  Give yourself permission to be happy every day.” — Joel Osteen

One of the most useful things I do before getting out of bed every morning is to commit to practicing some emotional calisthenics. Unlike physical exercise, where you have to throw on your Lululemon gear, tie up your running shoes, fill your eco-friendly water bottle and grab an edible power bar, (an oxymoron at its finest), with emotional calisthenics all you have to do is quiet your mind and rearrange your posture into  upward dog.  (The positive version of downward dog).
This workout regime is grassroots basics but the rewards outstrip any and all state-of-the-art-gymnasiums. 
It really all comes down to a matter of choice —as do a lot of things in life.
I begin my morning regime by consciously acknowledging my commitment to choosing how I will live this day. My options are: I can make this day difficult on myself, which will end up manifesting feelings of sadness, worry, and lethargy. OR, I can choose to take action the best way I am able, based on how my condition – both physical and/or emotion, is presenting—which includes level of pain, (sometimes it’s a 20 out of 10; and inflammation—think elephant hands and basketball knees, to name but a few symptoms.
Today, why don’t we both agree to choosing and embracing a positive attitude? Now if you think this statement is merely a new age fluffy blasé exercise – I will send you a photo of myself executing my perpendicular Hunchback of Notre Dame walk to the bathroom at 6 am, followed by the almost-touch-my-toes on the floor stretch as I wipe up the hot coffee I splattered into the dog’s water bowl because my fingers are so challenged they can’t grip things properly—and then you will understand my card carrying membership in the daily Olympian event of positivity-driven emotional callisthenics.   
If you can say that all in one mouthful you are well on your way to a good day.
Today, and the day after, and the day after that, is going to roll out regardless of our struggles with our autoimmune conditions so why not try and pull ourselves up onto the balance beam of acceptance, patience, tolerance and kindness to self- something that is desperately needed as we manage through some pretty tough days.
These include the multiple times a day trying to open water bottles that I swear gremlins stay up all night gleefully tightening the tops on so that ‘said’ bottles require herculean efforts to open. Or the article that I am writing, which is full of so many mistyped word blurbs that it makes no sense at all because my ring finger—which is perpetually too swollen to even consider wearing a ring—is stitched too tight to my middle finger, (the result of multiple tendon transfer procedures), to do its job properly.
Interestingly, however, while my ring finger refuses to press down the ‘s’ key, and can’t reach the ‘q’ key, it is brilliantly talented in pressing down on the ‘F’ key in what could quite possibly be a subconscious yet subliminal gesture to the challenges of my comprised condition.
And while Carpe Diem—seize the day—might not be possible based on crooked fingers and a cascade of conditions, the full phrase— carpe diem quam minimum credula postero —which translated into short form means ‘pluck the day’ is something that we all can quite possibly achieve. 
Namaste.