Strides towards making peace with morning

Memorial Day was a lazy day sprinkled with leftovers from my parents' cookout (they made loads of grilled veggies just for me) and cartoons. On a break from the exquisite laziness, I opened my newly titled Whole Living (It's Body+Soul, new name) and took the quiz to find my "dosha." Without getting into a lecture (or an explanation as to why I'm admitting that I took a magazine quiz), Ayurveda medicine sees humans as having a combination of different doshas, or type of energy. We all have components of reflective and slightly high strung vata (movement), productive and fiery pitta (transformation), and slow and heavy kapha (stability) energies. Still, most of us tend to exhibit more of one of these energies than another and Ayurveda medicine seeks to balance these energies out. For example, to cool the overactive fire of pitta energy, one adds elements (activities, food, people, etc) of cooling, soft kapha energy.

Well, that's the most simplistic explanation I've ever seen... it's not the whole story, but it's the gist of what I've had in mind as I approach this week.

I can get very overwhelmed looking at my week. I have a bad habit of feeling dread for what would look like just a moderately full agenda to others. I think this stems from my FMS, which I don't often discuss, since I dislike the look I get from people as though I will blow away in the wind before their very eyes. I'm not as delicate as all that. However, I do need to find moderation and balance in my activities. I lean towards slow, unproductive days because they take nothing from me, I'm not drained by bedtime. If I get on a roll, doing things and being there for people and working all at once, I keep going and going until I burn out and crash. I pay two uncomfortable days for every day that I lose my resolve and go crazy on the activities.

So, after taking another, more detailed test online, I found that I'm mostly made of kapha energy in a vatta body type (weird). I loathe mornings and have trouble establishing routine without feeling bitter... towards what or whom varies, but, I largely feel I've robbed myself of something my tired body needs. I lean towards this Ayurvedic perspective because I see how my body reinforces the ideas. In the morning, even if I feel physically okay, I tend to feel weighted down with dreams. I start having heavy, detailed, tensely emotional dreams in between smacks of the Snooze Button. I feel like my mind cooperates with my body to keep me down, to force me to rest some more, even if I don't need it.

So, I tried something different last night. I took my Benadryl earlier than bedtime (around 9:30pm). I set up a little space on the hope chest next to the window in the bedroom with a candle, a blanket, and my journal. I left sweet orange essential oil by the bed for the morning. I changed out the music in my cd player/alarm clock to play something calm at 7:15am (I figured, if nothing else, the change would get my attention). I set out clothes for the next day and for work in the evening. I was in bed by 11pm and reading a book that is interesting, but not scintillating. I likely fell asleep at 11:30pm.

When the alarm went off, I hit Snooze twice. I got up at 7:30 this morning.

I've got to write that one more time.

I got up at 7:30 this morning.

Not for work, not for the Market, not for anything but to get up. I went through the morning ablutions, made some water with lemon, lit my candle, and wrote for one full hour in my morning journal (a journal that has been taking me since 2004 to fill... since it's a "Morning Pages" thing...). By 9, I was enjoying my breakfast of rice cakes and natural peanut butter and local wildflower honey, a green apple, and green tea. I read through some blogs with which I've been meaning to catch up, wrote a few emails, I've written this entry... All before noon.

I have to admit- this kicks the hell out of my lackadaisical mornings of struggling to get out of bed by 10 or 11. I still have three and a half hours to myself before I have to go in and teach two classes tonight.

What must have made the difference was making the morning more inviting. Even if I had the sort of job where I needed to be up for a 9-5 time slot, I think this process would still be necessary. To have that quiet down time during which one reflects, sets his or her intentions, and has some calm and nutrition before heading out into the world. This morning was not beautiful- the clouds were bloated and indecisive, and that takes its toll on the moods of us all. But, with my candle set up (one of those lovely lavender candles made by Aveda) and a little spot set up for me to sit upon as I wrote... it was still a special space for me to do with as I needed.

It's already been a good day... and it's only 11:06am.

I'll try again tonight and see what happens.

There is richness in little, personal rituals... we all deserve to find what works for us to wake us up and makes us feel alive. A special breakfast, time to read the paper, Sun Salutations to stretch out and open up the lungs, an episode of your favorite cartoon (or grownup show, for those of you who have graduated) over coffee or tea, etc. We read this, hear this, etc, but, until you try it out for yourself, it all sounds like a magic spell and fairy dust.

I'm sure this won't always be enough. Some mornings I am just going to feel like crap and want to stay in bed. Maybe I'll need the rest then, too. My hope in establishing peace with morning through a new routine is that I'll soon learn the difference between needing rest and needing to inject new energy into my kapha nature to make better use of my days, my life.

(Interested in filling out the chart yourself to balance your own dosha?
Visit: http://www.gothamayurveda.com/)