I was thinking a little today about routines and how they can provide a structure and reasurance but how they can also be an excuse for not taking the best care of ourselves or sticking to our own promises
I do not have a set routine for my weeks as my work is varied and i travel to different locations. My start and end times vary a great deal as do my days off. I try very hard to mainatin a routime in the 24 hours I am experiencing simply by book ending my day.
I begin each day with Yoga and a cold shower and I end the day with a meditation practice and a warm bath. What happens within my day itself can vary wildly but i know for me as long as I am able to maintain these to rituals then i feel as though i have an anchor and I feel settled
I think this can be different for every one, some people are very centred around place or activity, some around mealtimes and others still seem to thrive on the unknown . It seems, as with many things, that the sweet spot is in the balance. Too much routine and we can feel restricted and too little and we may feel unstable. I remember when my daughters were babies and i had a strict routine of bedtimes, naps and feed times. This routine helped me to navigate what i found to be a very difficult period of my life with two very young children close together in age but, in retrospect, my routine was so tight and inflexible that many times i missed a great deal of the joy and fun wihich i could have had and i was, at times, a slave to this self imposed structure.
I hear also from my clients that being out of routine can be used as a permission for going rouge! The cheat meals, the late nights, the extra alcohol and other acrting out behaviours attributed to the lack of a known routine.
I think the trick is to create a known framework which is flexible and portable and can therefore provide a map to navigate unfamiliar terrain. Find what works for you and adapt it to the 24 hours you are currently living in.
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