Courtney Carver recently published a reminder of her simple practise in a post titled “The Most Meaningful Gift to Give Yourself Right Now.” I have included her 3 points below but her article includes much more detail.
It is Christmas time and holiday time and visiting family time. A truly wonderful time of year. A time of celebrating and feasting and filling our schedule with many wonderful outings and fun activities. More swims, more outings, more fun activities. All in addition to our regular days. Which still contain the same number of hours.
My girls are living on high excitement, more busyness than usual, later nights, less sleep, and no normal daily rhythm. And so am I.
I truly love to step out of routine. I do. I love spontaneity – especially as a mother and working person my life is usually very planned. But this year I seem to be more mindful of the effect it is having on me:
Recently my meditation practise slipped, my water drinking habit slipped, and then my back slipped out.
My back is something which I can only understand as psychosomatic. When I have been super oversubscribed, short of sleep and feeling unsupported, my back slips out and I have to spend at least a day lying down, moving slowly, not picking things up off the floor, or packing the dishwasher, or sweeping, or rushing. My back forces me to slow, and then to be still.
So it is with self-love that I have this morning returned to my meditation and water drinking. I am lying down while writing.
And it will be in the spirit of self-love that I follow Courtney’s advice to sit still, arrange my priorities, and make wise choices. Her practise holds so much transformational power in its simplicity. Here it is:
Five minutes: Carve out five minutes each day to sit quietly and ask yourself, to ask your heart the following questions.
- What matters most today?
- How do I really want to spend my time?
- What do I need to do to take really good care of myself and the people I love today?
