Three pivotal concepts to shift your mornings 🥐 🍵
Sometimes being easy on ourselves is the most difficult practice
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Here we are: part deux of Gentle Musings on mornings.
What follows are some musings that I’ve learned as a person that has a hard-won fondness of the mornings, sharing with the intention that these ideas, questions, and practices serve you too. This letter has elements that are extremely personal and emotional, so fair warning for tears.
As you know from the last Gentle Musings, comfort is my morning word.
Morning, day, or night, we really can’t have enough of it. Comfort isn’t complacency. Comfort is an expression of love, your body can’t overload on it; it just keeps sinking in, reaching further layers of self in a warm embrace. I hope that this reading experience is comforting.
In the spirit of everything I make, my suggestions are simply signposts to find what works for you.
They’re a way of seeing the mornings as a field to explore, not another schedule or rigid plan to adhere to.
If you wake up at the same minute every morning and eat the same thing and have been habit-stacking since you were a kid, this Gentle Musings probably won’t land. If that’s not you, read on…
November 2021 was a month of necessary sleeping in, like my body was being pulled back by invisible reins. At the beginning, I felt all of the judgement thoughts pour through:
Is something wrong with me?
Is this resistance?
Is this depression?
Why am I this tired?
Is it the screen before bed?
Anemia, maybe?
Is this part of winter? No… couldn’t be…
Am I really just this lazy?!
(These always sound harshest written down, don’t they?)
Even with so much turmoil, I couldn’t convince myself to continue business as usual. I finally decided that when the body needs more sleep, it is actively deterring anxiety, depression, and disease. I told myself that this is the time of the immune system and the nervous system to do their ancient, brilliant work while my chattery mind was finally quiet.
Once I had this line of logic, I gave into it without hesitation (and yes: I stayed healthy and felt very emotionally balanced that month).