“You have to select your thoughts like you select your clothes.”

Come Monday morning, both feel like impossible tasks!

This was a quote I heard when I was idly flipping through the channels the other afternoon. I quickly realized it was a cut-down, cable friendly, commercial-ridden version of the movie “Eat, Pray, Love” which I have yet to read, or watch, so I immediately shut it off and added the book to my “to-read” list.

In the short moments I watched, the characters were discussing, or arguing over, the impossibility of meditation. And simply put, and matter of factly it was stated that, even in a meditative state, thoughts should be selected, chosen, controlled, as easily as getting dressed in the morning. How simple.

If only I could shut my brain down from the reeling thoughts of ‘I should; what if; but maybe’ long enough to say, “shut the hell up and just put on jeans!”

But I guess that’s the point. You can sift through your closet each morning, hoping something new and fabulous will appear that makes your butt look smaller, your legs look longer, or you can accept the closet as it is and just choose an outfit. Sort through the crap that no longer fits. Donate whatever you haven’t worn in the last year. If you feel fat in it, or you aren’t comfortable when you put it on, out it goes.

Then attempt the same with your thoughts. Today I am sad and I miss my baby and I don’t want to spend Christmas without him. I am throwing those thoughts in a big, black, 50-gallon drawstring trash bag. Out they go. Today, what makes me feel comfortable, cute and confident?

I was an amazing mother. I was so blessed to have that beautiful boy for three years. This Christmas he gets to be with God in Heaven and I get to be here with his daddy, the man I love more than life itself. And that is good. That fits.