The Single Woman’s Dash of Sass: Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright

Quotes of the Day: 

“If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you’re waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there’s nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass.” ~Joel Osteen  

“You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen.” ~Kody Keplinger

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” ~Chinese Proverb

“Don’t worry about a thing. Every little thing is gonna be alright.” ~Bob Marley

The Single Woman Says:

The other night, I was relaxing (or so I thought!) in my bed watching a movie when I suddenly became aware of my posture. Though it was late, quiet and peaceful in my little apartment, with no deadlines or stressors pressing down on me…my shoulders were hunched up in a tight ball of tension and my abs clenched like I was poised for battle. When I had this moment of clarity and really paid attention to what my body was telling me…it truly surprised me. I think most of us go through life on auto-pilot (myself included) and we don’t ever really stop to see what our bodies are telling us. Mine was telling me, quite simply: Mandy, you don’t know how to relax. Since that night, I have begun to do little check-ins with myself throughout the day, and I’ve found that I’ve adopted the same tense, rigid stance in many other scenarios. When I’m driving my car, for example, I tend to hunch over the steering wheel, all tied up in bundles of stress.

So what has us all on edge? It seems as a society, we go through life, holding our breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Anxiety is at all all-time high, with the threats of terror alerts and unemployment rates and soaring gas prices and deadlines and obligations and traffic jams. We spend so much time trying to put out fires, we never have a chance to simply relax in front of them. But what can we do about it? Isn’t that “just life”?

In a word, NO. Being a constant bundle of nerves and tension and anxiety is not “just life.” It’s waiting to live…living in fear…planning to live…it’s not actually LIVING. That’s why I chose all of these wonderful quotes today, to remind you AND myself that it’s okay to just LET GO. To relax into life. To float and let life carry you. If you were swimming, you wouldn’t grasp on to the water as tightly as possible to stay afloat, would you? No, you would let go and relax into the ocean’s waves. So why do we find this so hard to do in life? Pay attention, even now, to how you’re sitting at your computer reading this. Are your shoulders bunched up and tight? Is your neck stiff? Are your abs clenched, like you’re waiting to go to battle? Then stop. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Let go. Stop holding your breath…and allow Life to take your breath away. You CAN surrender. Every little thing really IS gonna be alright.