Yesterday goes down in the record books as one of my Top 10 Worst Days at Work. I’ll spare you the gory details; suffice to say, there was one event that occurred that seemed to uncork four month’s worth of professional ugliness.

When I got home last night, I told Shawn over and over again that I didn’t like how the day at work made me feel: raw, exposed, edgy, anxious, ugly, nervous and empty. I snapped at him for no reason several times. In the words of the Daniel Powter song, my own personal system went on the blink, and the whole thing turned out wrong.

So this morning, as Shawn finished his breakfast downstairs and I turned off the alarm clock, I laid there in my bed, thinking about how I wanted today to be different. I didn’t visualize the day’s successful conclusion, but I repeated several times an affirmation that today will be a day that starts in peace and ends in peace, and when things start to go awry during the day, I’ll bring everything back to that place of peace.

Jesus, I sound so corny, like I’m getting ready to move into a nanny-sharing co-op-loving co-housing project in that Suburb Where I Once Worked (I’ll spare myself the Wrath of the Park by omitting the name of said suburb, lest the Google Gods carry my words forth to that land of trees, trees, anti-everything activists and more trees).

Corny or not, it actually makes a difference in how the day unfolds. Case in point: I work above the Farragut North Metro Station, which has seen three underground fires in the last four days. As the Red Line approached the station today, we stopped. And sat. And waited. For 12 minutes. Was it a fire? I don’t know. But I didn’t let it get me agitated or stressed. I just told myself that I would come back to my place of peace.

So do I sound like a 75-year-old hippie, or some New Age whack? Thing is, this stuff works. It all comes back to my favorite concept: mindfulness.

Now, friends, nosh on that. And note that I’ve made it easier for my beloved loyal readers to comment by removing that “type the word in the box like a trained monkey” spam-filtering thing and replaced it with some wicked spam-scrubbing software on my server.