Hi friend,
So here we are — at the start of a new year.
And if you're feeling fresh and recharged, clear about your focus and intentions for the new year, and already on track to taking consistent actions aligned with bringing those goals and intentions to life, hurray! That's wonderful.
Personally? Truth be told, I've been feeling pretty out of whack recently and less than ready to charge into the new year with clarity.
I have a three-year-old with unpredictable sleep patterns, and when she's in a phase of waking up at 5AM like she has been recently, that throws a serious kink in my usual daily meditation time I hold sacred.
At first I hardly even connected the dots between less meditation in my morning routine and more agitation in my days. But as soon as I looked more closely I realized, Oh, right, of course I've been feeling more off recently. My primary grounding practice had been off for weeks.
As soon as I made that connection, I was able to rearrange some scheduling and priorities to make sure I got back to my cushion every day in some form.
And wouldn't you know it, I started feeling like myself again almost immediately.
These minds of ours tend to overcomplicate things.
When we're under-resourced – without enough sleep, physical movement, nourishment, time in nature, connection, or when we have lots of external stressors coming at us – the mind is particularly susceptible to writing complicated narratives about why we're feeling the way we are or spinning out about how hard it thinks it will be to get back on track.
When the reality is that generally once we reimplement our most simple and reliable go-to habits, things start to feel on track again pretty easily and quickly.
So when in doubt, we can go back to basics.
We can check in with ourselves about what we're most needing and do a little scan of what would be our most efficient route to giving ourselves a bit of that thing we’re needing in a realistic way, given our circumstances of the moment.
For me, meditation is a nonnegotiable for my deepest well-being. For you, it may be regular walks or phone or coffee dates with friends or a regular yoga class or regularly dancing in your kitchen or…
What's your #1 self-care / grounding practice that creates the most positive impact for you with the least amount of effort?
Instead of reinventing the wheel to point yourself in the direction you'd like to head for this new year, you might consider reigniting a few of the habits that you already know work really well for you. You can piggyback new supportive practices and actions on from there.
Here's wishing you a new year in which you let ease and simplicity be sprinkled in wherever possible!
With Love,
