Live Consciously

I have been doing something called "Morning Pages" for the last two weeks. It is a meditative, stream-of-consciousness, writing practice that is done daily upon waking. I learned about it from my IIN Health Coach course, but also from hearing about it from friends. The concept is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way approach to releasing your inner creativity.

While I am not necessarily feeling any more creative yet (I'll give it time) (However, I did work on my novel for the first time in over 6 months!) I have found other things are falling into place quite naturally that are perpetuating wellness and self-care. 

The practice is to wake 30 minutes earlier than you normally would to write 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness writing, writing when you are not fully conscious or at least before the overly active conscious brain kicks in. It is working marvelously for me, I wake at 6:30 and crack the blinds and write while still in bed. I am finding it very soothing and meditative. It perpetuates a calmness throughout my day. I tried for some time to wake and do yoga, but I found the motion challenging and nauseating. Laying in bed and writing I can do. And so far I am loving it. And the "benefits" are very interesting to me.

It helps that we are not sleeping in the same bed right now. I know, I know! Gasp! Horror! Dismay! No, have no worries there is nothing wrong with our relationship – yes I went through the same mental, emotional process too, but the reality is my sleep was suffering. And I am not a pretty person when I don't get my 8 soundless, restful hours (A can attest to this and still claims to love me). We sleep differently. Actually I think most of us do. And the assumption that we have to sleep together in the same bed when we all have different sleeping needs: bed firmness, amount of blankets, light, air flow, waking, turning over, having an edge to lean off...it really is quite ridiculous that we fall into the societal expectation that only happy couples sleep in the same "marital" bed together. I think if we all acknowledged our individual sleeping needs and owned them, without guilt or blame, relationships might actually be happier and healthier. We didn't chose separate beds out of anything but love for each other. Well rested and restored we are better available to each other. 

The waking earlier has naturally made me go to bed earlier. I noticed this weekend my sleeping rhythm has changed and I'm actually liking it. I always used the weekends as an excuse to sleep in, but that thought didn't cross my mind this past weekend. When I woke at 7, I didn't "kick the dog" and grumble that I should have slept until 10 (which is what I have done most of my life). 

I find my eating patterns are different as well. I am trying to eat my largest meal at lunch time and not eat within 3 hours of bed time. Also I have noticed a lack of interest in TV watching (which I needed to cut back on anyway, the winter doldrums made for more-than-I-would-like-to-admit wasted hours of mindless TV watching). There is a very natural disinterest. Also my typical night glass(es) of wine has been lessening to only 1 small glass a few nights a week.

While not consciously making these decisions they seem to be happening quite naturally. I am not sure if I am at a turning point in my self wellness and health exploration, but the immediate thing I can associate it with is the implementation of my Morning Pages.

Something else interesting happened the other day too. We had friends over for dinner, which we do often, but the one thing I walked away from the night completely cognizant of was how quickly people eat. Part of my self-exploration is chewing and eating consciously. We fall into the habit of eating quickly, occasional "blob nights" of eating dinner in front of the TV becomes the norm, and when you live with a food inhaler you have to be even more mindful of your digestion. Another level of my living consciously is eating slower, appreciating a meal and chewing each bite 30 times. It has taken extreme awareness and some repeated explanation to the food inhaler in the home of why I am trying this. But this dinner in particular was fascinating to me. It was not from a place of judgement, but of curious observation and light-bulb-aha-moment. I hadn't even gotten through 2/3 of my dinner plate, and the other 3 people were done and going for seconds. They all finished their second helping before I finished my first and only, much smaller plated portion. I was not chewing any slower than normal and yes there was some roughage which required extra chewing effort, but I sat at the table mesmerized how such a simple conscious choice to chew 30x/bite depicts at a dinner party.

While I by no means am saying the self-exploration of wellness, self-care, eating and living consciously is the "correct" way, nor am I even comparing to anyone else. I am observing and intrigued by my choices now that I am actually starting to see comparisons in certain situations, like the dinner party and the gasp and horror of some friends when I said we we are sleeping in separate beds.

I think it is funny how we default to the norm and rarely acknowledge, stand-up for and implement a different way, when it is clearly not working for us. It is OK if the norm doesn't fit you, or me, or even your spouse, so long as we can love, support, encourage and adapt with each other; then maybe we all could learn to know what we need and want as individuals, without comparison and judgement, just prioritizing self-worth, consciousness and love for each other as individuals.