Of all the questions people send to Ask Amy, a good number of them are loosely around what I call “morning dread”.
People saying they wake up with a feeling of dread that dissipates throughout the day, but is immediate and strong in the morning and they want to know why.
They want a reason. They want to find the cause.
They want it to change, and they think they need to find the cause so they have something to change.
I always want to ask them: what if you just didn’t care what sort of energy is moving through you when you wake up?
Instead of putting so much time and energy into trying to find out why, why not just let the dread be there and go on with your day?
It dissipates eventually. All feelings change whether we like it or not. And disliking the morning dread only draws more attention to it, making it feel like a problem.
So what if you just went on with your day, not caring what feeling is there to greet you in the morning? The feeling can’t control you. It can’t even ruin your morning, although it definitely feels that way when you’re resisting it and trying to manipulate it away.
You’d go on with your day and before you know it, it will have changed on its own. If you keep going on with your day tomorrow and the next day, and you stop caring so much about the feelings showing up to greet you, they just might stop showing up altogether.
And if they don’t, you don’t have to care about that either.
