Morning Routine Challenge
A challenge. What always comes to my mind with the word challenge is the old Princess Bride quip “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” Well, this is not that kind of challenge.
Here’s the deal, I used to have a solid morning routine. 10-20 minutes of yoga, some meditation or reflective journaling, pull a tarot card. Like that. Then my dad died in February of 2018. He lived across the country from me, in Washington State. About as far from Vermont as you can get and still be in the same country. His death really rocked me, unsurprisingly. But given that we lived so far from each other, and didn’t talk every day or even every week, I didn’t expect that his death would affect my everyday life. But it did. It took me a while to even notice it, but my morning ritual fell by the wayside and I just couldn’t get it back. I gradually became aware that this was actually a symptom of my grief. And then it became my new normal.
Now it's been nearly a year and a half, and while I still miss my dad, I feel that I’m ready to embrace my morning ritual again. Upon making that decision, I spent some time on Pinterest and found a pin from a young woman that inspired me. She too has a side business and makes the time for her blog in the early morning 8 Things I Do Before 8AM. I've decided to shake up my old morning routine a little. I think it’s going to look like this:
Rise at 6 am
Meditate - often while I’m still in bed! (Thank you Insight Timer!)
Big glass o water to hydrate after 8 dry hours
Yoga 10 - 15 minutes with Gaia my online yoga shala
Living room workout 10 minutes (thank you Whole Life Challenge)
Journaling for 10 minutes
Perfect Avocado work for 20 - 60 minutes
This feels like a challenge. It’s easy for me to meditate, and drink water, but after that, the challenge aspect of this morning routine really sinks in. But I have a lot I want to accomplish, and as the saying goes, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Or, to quote Ms. Rita Mae Brown, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."
My challenge to myself is to do this morning routine for 30 days. My promise to you is that I’ll post on Instagram every day, what or how I did. I would love for anyone to join me along the way with your own personal version of a morning routine. For fun, I’ll be posting some celebrity morning rituals for you to ponder.
Join me! Don’t hesitate or make up reasons (aka excuses), just do it. Ok see you here on the interwebs, early tomorrow and for the next 30 days!
So, taking a cue from Mel Robbins 5-4-3-2-1. Go!
