December 06 – Refreshing your Routine: So much of our day is filled with thousands of small habits, and while altering them might not seem important, doing so is an invaluable aid to the release of the ego-self that is controlling many of our unhealthy choices. So take a few moments and write down your general everyday routines … Now, next to those notes, jot down ways that you can easily alter them (e.g. perform tasks in a different order, perform them with your non-dominant hand, do the opposite, don’t perform them at all, replace them with another activity, etc.) … Put this New Routine into your pocket — Go forth today and live it!

This one was fun, though also challenging — for two reasons.

First of all, my day was filled with tasks that really needed to be done (I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a week-long trip), and we all know how difficult it is to alter our established “groove” on such days. Secondly, the middle portion of my days have been pretty routine-less for many a moon, and I found it quite hard to change routines that don’t really exist (insert smiley face here).

And yet, I do have quite a few habits that I engage almost every morning & almost every evening, so I was able to focus there and get some big-benefit from the task.

Here is how my “normal” day looked on paper when I jotted it down:

pre-sunrise (roosters begin crowing around 4am): awaken and get up out of bed

… turn on computer to check email

… shower & brush teeth

… feed cat & dog (in that order)

… feed chickens and geese (in that order)

… eat breakfast with Mom

… head out and get to work

(my schedule of mid-day tasks is flexible & ever-shifting)

dusk: put up chickens

… eat dinner with Mom & Lawrence

… check email, read or write & go to bed

As I mentioned before, I have no set routines during the middle part of my days, and I don’t even have an overarching routine for my week (every day is both a Sunday & a Monday in my life). And yet, while concentrating on this exercise today, I did rediscover (and then purposefully alter) my “routines within the routines”:

I always get up from the same side of the bed. Today I rolled out to the left instead of the right …

I always get dressed the same way. Today I put on my socks after my jeans (uncomfortable!) …

I always brush my teeth with my right hand. Today I used my left (warning: this can hurt!) …

And what’s the point of this, you ask?  To learn to pay attention, for one.  It is indeed senseless to alter a behavior merely to alter it, and yet I have faith that each of you who performed this task felt what I did:  a reawakening of Presence in your lives; a refreshed comprehension of your Here & your Now; a renewed understanding that each of us is able to choose our actions in every moment.

I also realized that changing a routine merely to change it is not a good thing to do if someone else gets upset or harmed by that act. For example, my dog is aggressively protective of her food and our cat is overly curious about the same. This not a good mix if Nooka (the dog) receives her food before Kitty does. So I fed the cat first, as usual.

Finally, even though the majority of my moments are not proscribed by any duties or obligations of routines, I still was able to alter the general perspective of my non-routined day; shifting it from flexibly engaging the jobs I thought were important to purposefully engaging those that were important to my Mom.

I was also able to identify and alter an emotional routine. While my stepfather and I normally do not often engage one another directly with any noticeable intimacy, tonight I purposefully expressed my affection for him as a person before retiring for the night.

Neither of these choices was easy, and yet I enjoyed the both so much, I’m considering making them into routines 😉 …

That’s all for today.

See You when I see you …

… and until then, Be Now!

Scaughdt

Filed under: 366 Days of Kindness by Scaughdt