Easter is a funny old thing. Because it’s 4 days I think we often feel a lot of pressure to make it count. It needs to be impressive, worth the extra time and provide great stories when you get back to the office.

How do we counteract this? Easter was weird for me this year because I don’t work Fridays so it was hard to get as excited as usual. And I’m so focussed on 9 nights away end of April that Easter didn’t seem important compared to the big holiday. I didn’t have any exciting plans and was probably ignoring it so I didn’t feel like I was missing out.

But looking back, it’s been amazing, even though it included some really crappy parts. I was just lying on the floor doing a meditation and ended up reflecting on the weekend and realised I wasn’t quite grateful enough. I was a spoilt brat at times and I did spend time thinking that things should be a certain way and the world owed me. And after seeing “I, Tonya” at the movies it made me giggle at myself that I was taking no responsibility and blaming the world. However the beautiful part is that I’m not at all beating myself up about this, in fact I’m having a bit of a laugh at myself. Being gentle, being kind, and accepting my humanness. And realising I am so lucky to even be able to have this awareness so that I can then choose to change it.

I love Easter in Sydney because so many people go away everything is quieter. You don’t have to pack or travel with others or forget things or do crazy itineraries. You actually feel like you are getting a holiday while being at home. Less traffic, less people, less bustle. It’s glorious. And this year there was the most special gift, the most stunning summer weather.

I’ve had the best time. Getting some good running done (definitely could’ve been more grateful while it was happening and less focused on the discomfort), caught up with some family for the first time in about 6 months (very interesting and more work to be done about who I am in relation to family and how that fits into my life), wonderful dinner at a new restaurant with very fun friends (and was 2 wine Wendy so I felt fantastic the next day), convinced boyfriend to get up early at the end of daylight savings to go to the beach for the water to be good for his sore hamstring (why don’t I do this more often – total soul food being in nature and the ocean but things often seem too hard with parking etc so I don’t bother), movie which made me appreciate my parents and my brain and my life so much more, the ease of public transport, live game of AFL even if the result wasn’t what I was hoping for, tacos and 2 beer Sunday (Willie the Boatman’s crazy Ivan IPA is delish), and Monday I completed 20 out of 20 chores on the list and then did another 3 things for good measure. Mind you a couple were meditation and soak feet in new bath salts present so hard to call them chores.

Things only went wrong when I had expectations and felt people should act a certain way. That’s the only time I ever get stuffed up really. If I can let go of them and just focus on the great things about people I am so much happier. Add to that if I can let go of expecting myself to be perfect as well that will make things so much easier. I realised that as we are all learning, what bugged me about my boyfriend was actually what bugs me about myself. A great lesson right there. I wonder what makes me think I should be perfect at relationships when I haven’t had that much practice at good ones? Isn’t it like learning yoga or a musical instrument – doesn’t it take time and practice to become advanced?

So the big reminders here for me are definitely being grateful and more letting go. More remembering to take responsibility for my own happiness.

Any lessons learnt for you at Easter????

Be kind to yourself.

Wxx