I took winter break right alongside her – staying up late (rekindling my love for puzzles) and sleeping in because we had nowhere to be for the second half of break. It was downtime that was deeply needed.
Taking a break to allow yourself to be, to breathe, to reconnect with activities that bring you joy, is important and nourishing for your soul.
After taking a break, you have to find your way back.
***
The alarm went off at 6am and I did not even let myself consider snoozing (well, for a moment). I got up, wrote my morning pages, meditated, made my lemon water, and made breakfast.
It would have been easy to hit snooze and let that create a feeling of grogginess to begin my day.
I made a different choice.
It can be as simple as making a different choice, of setting the example for ourselves that we want to live by.
I wrote for thirty minutes, and then after I got her to school and got to some coffee, I wrote for another four hours.
That is how I ground myself. Through words. I let them flow through me and over me and out onto the page.
I let them meander. I let them make sense. I let them be nonsense.
We all have the rituals that ground us, whether we call them rituals or not, whether we do them regularly or not, whether we are fully aware of them or not.
Pause right now and think for a minute of what you do in that moment of being frazzled that settles your energy. That doesn’t mean you remember it every time, but it’s there right? It exists. Write it down and put it somewhere you can see regularly. Make it the background on your phone. Post a sticky note where you need it most. Write it in pen on your hand if you need to.
As we begin the new year steeped in the energy of the full moon, let’s take a different approach to the standard idea of resolutions.
Instead of making a list of the things you want to incorporate into your life or change at a frequency or pace that makes it quite likely you’ll burn out on the idea quickly, what if you simply found a way to ground yourself?
Why? Because it brings you back to center no matter what is going on.
It will help you when you get down on yourself about falling off on a resolution three weeks in and it will help you when there’s more going on in your head than you can even begin to sort into lists and concrete actions.
So let’s ground together.
I want to offer you three opportunities to ground with me this week in the Sacred Becoming Sanctuary.
1. Let’s write together. I will be posting a writing prompt on Friday that will help us ground into the new year with intention.
2. Let’s meditate together. On Monday at noon I’ll offer a little intro to mantra meditation via Facebook Live, take some q&a, and go through a quarter mala meditation with you.
3. Let’s breathe together. Look for a guided breathing meditation on Wednesday that is a simple and effective way to get grounded wherever you are (with the exception of the driver’s seat of a car!).
Once we realize we can create breaks whenever we need them, and that they don’t need to be a week or two long, so much shifts, and so much becomes possible. I hope you’ll take a break (or three) with me this week.
With Love and Gratitude,
Xandra
