Claim Your Morning Back

How do you start your day? This short write-up was inspired by reading Claire Taylor's articles and this one sort of spoke to me because of how it affects our lives in general.

In an article titled Why It Matters How You Start Your Morning, Claire spoke about how she went for a retreat where she didn't DO anything but she worked more on the Be. In her words: My intention for the retreat was - BE, RELAX & SURRENDER.  This wasn’t a do, do, do weekend – it was about chilling out and going with the flow. 

This got me thinking, how many times have you and I taken time to have a retreat with ourselves? Where we keep all human contact from the outside especially on our phones very minimal?. 

Claire went on to explain how social media is a Super-highway and I do agree with her. Talking about social media in Nigeria, since the excessively yet positive reduction in the price of data bundles, the craze has taken over and I am as guilty as the person tweeting away right now. In fact I am so guilty I am going to share this post on my social media platforms.

With it's fast and sometimes accurate delivery of rumors and information, I daresay social media has become Bibles,dictionaries and newspapers to the average Nigerian youth. The relationship most of us build with social media is as important as taking out time to meditate, think, pray, reach our insides for that creative idea that our creator has embedded in us.

 Personally, all social activities starts by 8:00 am, before then I would have said my prayers, meditated and prepared for work. The news is, this sometimes is not enough.

You can #ClaimYourMorningBack by following this tips and of course find more that suits your person:

1.    Do nothing - just be:  Our minds become quiet naturally - you don't have to do anything. But given that you'll probably want to do something in the morning - the ideas below are better alternatives to surfing social media.

2.    Morning pages – a journaling practice.  It has a different quality to journaling at other times. The writing has no purpose beyond emptying your mind of mental chatter so you can connect more easily with your creative self.

3.     Transcendental Meditation – or any kind of meditation or mindfulness. 

4.    Walking the dog (or just yourself). A nature walk in the morning is refreshing and energizing. A word here about running - I’m not a runner but I know many who connect with themselves through their morning runs.

5.    Go slow: When you start the day slowly do not get worried that this slow pace will mean that you'll get less done during the day. At the end of the day, You would discover that you got more done. Because you did things well the first time you'll spend less energy on draining feelings and on having your attention bouncing around between many things.

Thank you, please drop your comments. God bless