September is my busiest work time. So instead of the languid summer morning quiet time to get centered, I sometimes only have a few minutes.
It turns out that’s all I need. Once I got out of the “shoulds”: I should meditate, pray, exercise, read affirmations, wake up at 6am, Bible study, oil pull, stretch, drink water and lemon, do deep breathing exercises, journal, do morning pages, gratitude, dry brush, etc.
We’ve read the magazine articles that have told us what we need to do for self-care. It’s exhausting. When we don’t do what we think we are supposed to do for self-care, it makes us feel guilty on top of the less time for self-care. Yet some times of life like care-giving and young kids we don’t have as much time. If we focus on being guilty, we don’t get the full renewal of small times of centering.
When I thought about what my purpose was for my quiet time – to connect with God & myself and get me into a good mind-set for the day ahead, a moment can do these things. A moment of awe, or gratitude, or a song.
So maybe one day I do a 5 minutes meditation on God’s word and feel inspired for the day. Another day when my monkey mind is going wild I journal to get to peace. A morning spent in the backyard writing about what I see can change my mood.
We don’t need to do everything every morning. And we certainly don’t need to feel guilty about it. Find renewal in the moment you have.
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Photo by me in the backyard
Looking to simplify or start your self-care routine? I have a playbook and I do coaching around self-care: Simple Self-Care
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