Seven Days, Seven Reminders

By Dehyana

I wasn’t meditating or journaling or asking the Universe for guidance. I was lying on the floor with the backs of my legs resting on my vibration plate. Very spiritual. My mind was actually pretty quiet when suddenly the word Monday came into my mind.

Monday – Ministry. Your life is your ministry. Hmm. Then came Tuesday – Tether. Tether your spirit to your Higher Power followed by Wednesday – Word. What is the word you live by? And before long, the whole week was there.

I don’t know if it was a download, inspiration, or simply what happens when you lie on the floor vibrating long enough, but I paid attention. Because when I looked at the seven words, I realised they weren’t asking us to add anything else to our lives. Thank God. I don’t think any of us needs another spiritual to-do list. They were reminders. Seven simple daily spiritual reflections—one for every day of the week—inviting us back to what matters while we’re right in the middle of ordinary life.

So here we go.

Monday — Ministry

Your life is your ministry.

When we hear the word ministry, we tend to think of something official. A church, a spiritual teacher or someone standing in front of a room talking about God. But what if your life is your ministry? Not what you call yourself and not what you do for a living. Not how many people follow you or whether anyone knows your name.

How do you meet the person standing in front of you? How do you speak to the waitress who got your order wrong? How do you behave when nobody is watching? What do you bring into your home, your work and your relationships?

Some of the greatest acts of ministry will never be witnessed by anyone like a kind word or listening when you’d rather interrupt. The simple act of making dinner or sitting beside someone who is hurting when you have absolutely no idea what to say. Ministry isn’t something we have — it’s more about how we live. So Monday’s question isn’t only, “What do I need to accomplish this week?”

It’s also: What am I bringing with me into it?

Tuesday — Tether

Tether your spirit to your Higher Power.

By Tuesday we’ve probably already wandered off. Something didn’t go according to plan or somebody annoyed us. We read something that frightened us, or your bank account isn’t cooperating. That certain person called you, or the email arrived. Life happened.

And suddenly we’re tethered to everything except God. That’s what I love about the word tether. A tether doesn’t mean we never wander. It simply means we have something that keeps us connected and somewhere to return. Think about it, we’re always tethered to something. Fear. Other people’s opinions. The news. Money. Approval. Our plans and especially our need to know what’s going to happen next.

So maybe Tuesday is simply a day to notice: What am I tethered to?

And if we’ve tied ourselves to something that’s dragging us all over the place, it’s high time to untie the rope and remember where we actually want to be anchored.

Wednesday — Word

What is the word you live by?

We all have one, whether we’ve consciously chosen it or not. Love. Trust. Fear. Duty. Hurry. Control. Prove. Survive. Peace.

What word has been subtly governing your life lately? It’s an interesting question because the word we say we live by and the word we’re actually living by aren’t always the same.

I might say I trust God while spending half the day worrying about what might happen next month. Or I might say peace matters to me while arguing with someone in my head who isn’t even in the room. Our lives have a way of revealing the word we’re actually following. Wednesday gives us a chance to notice it. And if we don’t like the word we’ve been living by? We can choose again.

Thursday — Teachable

Are you still teachable?

This one could sting a little. We can spend years studying spirituality, reading books, attending workshops, meditating, praying, teaching, healing and accumulating wisdom…and then we decide we know. But life has an extraordinary way of rearranging the classroom.

Can someone younger than me teach me something? Can someone I disagree with show me something about myself? Can I discover that something I believed for thirty years no longer feels true? Can I admit I was wrong? Being spiritually experienced and being teachable are not necessarily the same thing.

One of the signs of wisdom isn’t how much we know, it’s that we remain willing to learn. Thursday asks us to leave a little room for life to surprise us.

Friday — First Things First

I have always loved this one. Because my mind can be dealing with next Thursday before I’ve finished Friday morning. We can spend enormous amounts of energy solving problems that haven’t happened, rehearsing conversations we may never have and trying to figure out the next six months before we’ve even had breakfast.

First things first. What actually needs your attention now? Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is make the phone call. Pay the bill. Eat something. Rest. Apologise. Go outside. Pray. Take the next step. Or decide that there is no next step to take today. We don’t have to solve our whole lives every morning.

Friday brings us back from the enormous story we’ve created in our minds and asks: What is mine to do now? Start there.

Saturday — Soul

What feeds yours? Not what makes you productive. Not what you’re supposed to do. Not what everyone else needs from you. What makes you feel alive? Music? Cooking? Gardening? Painting? Sitting under a tree? Walking somewhere beautiful? Laughing until your stomach hurts? Being alone? Being with people you love? Or doing absolutely nothing for an afternoon without turning it into a spiritual practice?

We spend so much of our lives feeding responsibilities, obligations, relationships, businesses, families and endless lists of things that need our attention. We need to remember that somewhere in all of that is a soul living a life. Saturday can remind us to feed that too.

Joy doesn’t have to earn its place in our lives and neither does rest or pleasure. Sometimes there doesn’t need to be a lesson. Sometimes you just eat the chips.

Sunday — Surrender

And then we come to Sunday. The exhale. Surrender doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean becoming passive or pretending we don’t care. It means we stop trying to carry what was never ours to control.

The week happened. Some things went beautifully and some didn’t. We said things we wish we’d said differently. We made good decisions and questionable ones. We worried unnecessarily. We forgot what we knew. We remembered again. Some prayers were answered and some weren’t, while some things remain unresolved. You know what? Let them be unresolved.

Surrender the week.

Lay down the conversations, the mistakes, the victories, the disappointments, the plans and the endless need to figure everything out. You lived it. Now let it go.

Because Monday will come again.

And that’s what I love most about these seven little words that arrived while I was lying on my floor with my legs vibrating. They’re not commandments or another program for becoming a better human being.

They’re simple reminders.

Ministry — We serve.
Tether — We remember what we’re connected to.
Word — We notice what’s governing our minds.
Teachable — We remain willing to learn.
First Things First — We attend to what’s in front of us.
Soul — We remember to live.
Surrender — And then we release it all.

Seven days.
Seven reminders.
And then we begin again.

With love, Dehyana