#imust

So I had a positive day today mostly because I started it right.  

I’ve been listening to The Minimalist Podcast at work this week and have had mindfulness on my mind A LOT lately.  I want to become more mindful and I feel like I could really do that by minimizing my life a little bit.  One thing that I read and heard on the podcast is that by simply saying that I should do something isn’t going to change my mindset.  By saying I should change is only going to make me think... yeah I should... but maybe on Monday, or New Years...  

And they are so right, I needed to start saying I must instead of saying I should.  I must is more deliberate. So I am going to say that I must change my morning routine.  

Currently I set my alarm for 6:40 am, get pissed off when it goes off and set it for another 20-40 minutes.  I had the intention of waking up at 6:40 to do yoga or meditate before I begin my day but I just always say I should wake up and meditate in the morning.  And that isn’t working so it never gets done!  Sometimes I don’t get out of bed until 7:20 which then rushes me around as I try to eat breakfast (which I don’t always do, by choice), and wash my face and brush my teeth and get dressed.  It is so mundane.  I hate mornings.  But I know in my heart that I really don’t want to hate mornings, a matter of fact, early morning is one of my favorite times of day to drive or to run around because it is so cool and fresh and new.  I love the idea of morning but can’t get myself to  enjoy it for real. 

This morning I woke up despite my frustration that I had to, I briefly stretched in my bed and sat up and chugged about 30 ounces of water.  THAT IS SO GOOD FOR YOU!!! So yes, I peed three times before I left for work but my body needed that so bad, I was waking up with headaches which I’m diagnosing as some dehydration.  I felt really proud and excited that I had drank so much before I even put my feet on the ground.  

Then I woke up, peed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face. I then decided that I wanted to do yoga this morning.  After lasts night yoga class we were warned that we would be pretty sore today so I wanted to prepare the best I could by... well... doing more yoga haha!  So I did some sun salutations, and some strength, stretching, and awakening postures and I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!  At the end I was sad that it was already 7:20 and I needed to start getting ready.  I wanted time to meditate after that session.  

I even ate breakfast.  Sometimes my stomach doesn’t actually like to eat breakfast, it can be picky sometimes.  But I did this morning, however I tried something different.  I have a bad habit of filling a bowl with cereal and dumping milk in.  Then realizing I have too much milk but don’t want to waste it (I am not a cereal milk drinker) so then I dump more cereal in to soak up the milk... and it seems to be a horrific cycle to the point that I have had probably 3x the suggested serving!  So I measure out the serving size.  IT WAS ALL I NEEDED!  In turn I used way less milk which is perfect because I can go through it too fast that way. 

It was only after all of that that I checked my phone, and social media.  

Then I turned my podcast on and walked out the door feeling really, REALLY great.  If that is all it takes for me to have an amazing day, why don’t I just do that every morning???