For over a year now, I've been practicing extreme self-care. That means I don't run myself anywhere nearly as ragged as I used to, not for my art, other people, or events that are fun but end up costing too much time, energy, and gas.
The forms of self-care that have had the biggest impact and which I've been able to keep consistently are my morning and evening rituals. I came up with an idealistic list for each. I added things I enjoy doing and want to be doing regularly. I say it's idealistic because the list has too many items to do on a typical workday/evening but having the variety of things to do as a possibility, helps to keep my mornings and evenings flexible and unique since I can pick and choose among my ways to start my mornings or close my evenings.
I've become accustomed to the daily morning and nightly rituals I created for myself. It's been both healing and centering to have them in place. I have more patience on days when I wake up early enough to do my morning body work, journal, and enjoy my morning. And I sleep better after a sea salt bubble bath and after I've had time to unwind from my day. There's something about the consistent practice of taking care of oneself that nourishes the soul and creates a deeper, richer sense of self.
Having this time that I love in my days has helped me to guard my time by saying no to too much busyness. There's so much negativity in social media these days. It's a sabbatical just to go off it. My goal is to maintain balance as I remain socially and politically involved.
I'll share the details of my morning and evening rituals in another post. For now, I wanted to ask the question, do you have intentional morning and evening rituals? We all have routines, but are you making deliberate choices about how you are starting and ending your days?
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