A New Morning Routine
After stepping away from my life for 5 weeks to adventure in Vietnam and Cambodia, I wanted to immediately jump back into my regular life rhythms. Unfortunately my body had other ideas (my intestines made some new friends who promptly got drunk and destroyed the place).After getting over the initial health drama, I wanted to jump back into the gym and act like nothing had happened. I pushed hard in a few spin classes and wanted to die... thinking this is what I deserved and how it should be.Simultaneously, I also wanted to know if my body was truly recovered, so I started seeing a kinesiologist who's guiding me on the path of healthy choices and deep healing for the long run.Oddly this means not much in the way of exercise. At the gym I have a tendency to overwork; apparently this taxes my adrenals. This all makes sense to me because for the last 1-1/2 years I've been exercising like a mad woman with very little change in my body (truly unusual for me). So now I'm tasked with slowing down and keeping my heart rate under 120bpm to support my body's healing process, which would be a lot easier if I had a heart rate monitor.What to do? I like having some sort of grounding morning routine.
Enter meditation. Specifically the free 21-day guided meditation on success by Oprah and Deepak Chopra.Literally I wake up excited and thinking about what today's meditation will be. Some days are easy for me, others are a struggle. I've been showing up for 10 days now, though, and truly loving it... enough that I want to continue setting aside this 20 minutes each morning. After this I plan to explore other program options because I enjoy having direction at this moment — soft music, an introduction, a mantra, and a timer.A new, healthy habit is forming. Now to reintroduce exercise in a calmer manner that works. An interesting side note is that my body is changing back towards the body I remember, all through dietary changes and rest. Walking would support this transition (and get me out in nature more), so maybe I'll search for a heart rate monitor now.... and cancel the gym membership for the time being?