It's morning. I've been up for a while, which is a shock to most who know me well. The fact that I'm up before 9am is a minor miracle. The fact that I'm not cranky and crabby on top of it may make some people who know me who brainwashed me, because this isn't what I'm normally like. I'm the lazy mom that rolls out of bed last minute and does as little in the possible in the morning, generally because I stay up all night.
Over the past few days I've been experimenting with a new sleep routine. I don't sleep in anymore. I'm trying desperately not to let myself get out of bed after 7am. It's been working out great. I'm up when my kids get up, and I'm surprisingly not crabby. Next week I think I may try and bump it earlier by a half hour and then again the week after that so I'll be getting up at 6am. Then I'll have enough time to do yoga in the morning before the kids wake up.
Yoga is one of those things I used to do in the mornings way back when I still worked at the eyeglass company. I would have to get up at 5am in order to have time in the morning, and there was barely room. We were staying with a friend in his living room. We had an air mattress out and slept on that, but that took up so much room that it was hard to find space to do yoga. I would have to keep it really quiet because my daughter and her father were asleep. I would do an hour of yoga, eat a light breakfast, then walk to the station to catch the 7am train. Every morning I would show up almost two hours early for work or more, but waiting for a later train would leave me a half hour late, so there wasn't much in the way of option there. I'd spend my time waiting with a good book, eating a horrible breakfast from the fast-food joint in the food court or hanging out at the coffee shop with some tea or hot chocolate. It wasn't much of a fancy ritual or anything, but it was my ritual each morning, and I loved it.
There's just something about yoga in the morning. It's invigorating and wakes up the body, sure, but there's something more to it. It's not just gentle stretching and strengthening. It's also meditative. There's something about moving through the poses, focusing on the inner thoughts and the actual feelings and sensations in the body (and in all honesty here, I'm thinking, "My body is SO not flexible enough for that!") I feel more connected to myself when I do yoga, more present in my own physical form, more aware of everything going on in my own person. It's wonderful.
All of that ended the first time when I broke my elbow. After three months of not being able to do much of anything followed by almost a year of being unable to do yoga because I didn't have the strength, I got out of the habit. It's so easy to get lazy about things, even when it's something enjoyable. I tried on a couple of occasions to get back into it, but I never really did. I've heard that it takes 21 days to make a new habit, good or bad, and I've never been able to last out that three week period before. After a couple of days I'm making excuses about not having enough time for yoga, which is largely true when I get up to a house full of bustling activities, everyone already doing their own things for the day. There's no peaceful, quiet time for me to focus on yoga. Even if I shut myself in my room, the kids come in demanding this or that. They don't exactly make it easy. Besides, once the day is rolling, it's often easy to drop things off the schedule when things get hectic, and it's all too easy to make excuses of being too busy or tired.
Of course, getting up before the kids is a ritual in the making. It's going to involve cleaning my living room so I can have a space to do yoga. It will mean getting my yoga mat out of the closet. I'll have to start waking up consistently about an hour earlier each day. It's going to take some time to get there, but I have a goal. From there it's keeping up with it for 21 days so it becomes habit, and hopefully after that it will be so much easier to get up to in the morning. That's going to be my first goal, last out 21 days of daily yoga.
On another note, nothing says morning like tea. Tea and yoga kind of go hand-in-hand. Most of the people I know who do yoga are also big tea drinkers. It's probably got to do with yoga and tea both being healthy for you, so one would imagine that would be a good combination. It's a great way to wake up in the morning, and truth be told, I like it better than coffee. I've never been much of a coffee drinker anyway. That's what I'm doing this morning. Sitting at my computer, drinking some tea. My cabinet is full of tea. I've got so much tea it's almost shocking, considering most of it's never even been touched. It's time I made tea a part of my morning ritual too. It's probably a lot healthier for me than most of my other morning routines! At least I can say it's good for me!
All in all, I think I'm taking a positive step forward in my life. Most mornings I've woken up crabby, just wanting to be left alone only to be ambushed by children that want my attention, and haven't been getting it since I've been sleeping. Even having someone else get up with the kids in the morning doesn't seem to stop the madness when I finally get up. Now I'm less cranky in the morning, more focused, and much happier. I don't know if it's the quality of sleep I've been getting or if it's got to do with the much quieter pace in the morning, but I'm feeling so much more approachable. It leaves me with a couple of hours to get myself collected in the morning too. I can spend some time on the computer, reading a book, or even just sitting to meditate by myself for a while before my day needs to get rolling. It leaves me to feel less rushed when I finally do have to get up and go do something. I guess, in a way, I feel so much more balanced, and I'm continuing to follow that path.
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