Happy Friday, y’all! If you are in the mid-Atlantic or northeastern US, I hope you’ve stocked up on your beer/wine, chips and cookie dough, because you’re in for a snowy weekend! (What exactly do people do with all that milk and bread??) If whatever you do offers you an opportunity to pause, take it. It’s a rare miracle when you have the choice to slow down, so don’t miss this just by staring at your phone, ok?
So there’s some unsolicited advice, but it’s not even this weekend’s “No-Fail Friday” mindfulness challenge. For that, we are going back to the topic of morning rituals, and finding ways to ensure that you get a mindful start to your day. This one might actually be easier than forcing yourself to have a quiet weekend. One of the many nice things about the weekend is that, although we may be busy, our schedules are usually a little more flexible.
So when you wake up this weekend, take those few extra minutes to notice what makes you happy. Is it spending a few extra minutes in bed reflecting on the day ahead? Or maybe that first cup of coffee I waxed so poetically about in my last post? Maybe it’s listening to a certain song, or soaking up the steam in the shower. This weekend, it’s just about noticing. At the end of the weekend, compare those notes to you average busy weekday morning. How much of what you loved on weekend mornings is present in your weekday morning?
Before you roll your eyes and say, “More sleep, more time and more mimosas, duh,” or whatever you think would be impossible to incorporate into a weekday, check your assumptions. OK, mimosas are out, but if it’s more time that you need, how can you make that happen? Maybe it’s a simple solution of earlier to bed and earlier to rise, but maybe it’s also about mindfulness. Being truly checked in to the present moment makes us capable of using it better. Research has shown that multitasking doesn’t work, and multiple tasks performed at once actually take longer than the same tasks performed individually in a focused manner. It may just be that a handful of minutes of mindful breathing, writing or even just noticing you surroundings at the beginning of your day make both the morning, and the day, a little more available to you. Being present is not only powerful, it can be really productive.
Have a wonderful, warm weekend full of many happy moments! May you mindfully enjoy them all.
Photo credit: Pawel Kadysz
