Excuse me, but life is not one-size-fits-all, especially when it comes to having a “morning” routine.
In fact, a morning routine can give you a false sense of “awareness,” especially if the rest of your day is an unconscious mess.
Why? Because…
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MORNING. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE ROUTINE.
There is no special time of day that suits everyone. Neither is it necessary to have a “routine.”
I discovered this for myself after kicking myself in the behind for years because I couldn’t seem to commit to the kind of morning routine “they” said I should. To wit…
Don’t check your email first thing in the morning.
Don’t turn on the news.
Don’t make phone calls.
Don’t eat pizza for breakfast.
Don’t sleep too late.
Don’t wake up too early.
Wake up really really early.
Exercise before you do anything else.
Drink at least 8 ounces of water (room temp, distilled, preferably from a “Riedel H2O Classic Bar Highball” because it allows you to feel the temperature of the water through the thin but sturdy glass).
And so it went.
The more we try to do what’s “right,” the more we convince ourselves we’re doing everything “wrong.”
Once I realized this I could see that doing it “wrong” is impossible except when:
- You’re doing what “they” want you to do, or what you think you “should” do in order to prove something to someone.
- Doing “whatever you want” does harm to your mind and/or your body. For example, just because you have the power to choose to eat a whole sleeve of Oreos (because no one can tell you it’s forbidden), doesn’t mean you’re in integrity when you eat them.
Integrity is everything. Without it, there’s not much left of a woman.
The same cannot be said for morning routines.
The purpose of having a morning routine is to bring one into conscious awareness of a new day and to practice extending that awareness through the day. It’s a meditative practice that is not reserved for mornings only.
The potential problem with having a morning routine is this: many people, once they’re done their routine and can check off the box that says “I did my morning routine,” become unconscious for the rest of the day. They haven’t maintained the meditative (conscious) state such a routine is designed to create.
It’s the difference between doing and being, or what I call my be do be do be philosophy of becoming the woman you want to be through conscious awareness of everything you choose to do throughout the day.
Being precedes doing.
Going through my emails first thing in the morning with conscious awareness is a meditative practice, or, dare I say, part of my spiritual practice of staying conscious – being in the moment, immersing myself in the now. Am I able to do this every morning? Certainly not. But I don’t focus so much on the morning but rather on what my mind is doing throughout the day.
To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with a morning routine, especially when such a routine includes keeping a watchful eye on the state your mind is in.
Bottom line – anything that keeps you focused on the moment you are in, no matter what the time of day, is all you need to live a gutsy glorious life with meaning and purpose.
This is how we woman UP.
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