If your main focus is caring for others, finding the time or motivation to spend even a few minutes on taking care of yourself can be daunting. The inner sanctuary community just finished reading BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything for our March bookclub … and now we’re tiny-habiting All The Selfcare Things. We learned how to start caring for ourselves in a moment—as in “less than a minute”—every day.
I started with my daily meditation practice.
I have a cute little home studio on the second floor of our farmhouse where I teach my classes from. It faces East so I can watch the sun rise over our iconic muraled barn in the mornings. I love sitting on our front porch during the fine-weather months—listening to the birds sing and watching the dew glisten on the pasture grass as the sun comes up while drop into my body—but in the winter, when mornings are still dark, I have a hard time motivating my butt onto my mat in the studio.
Heading up to the studio was especially challenging while we were still in our temporary bedroom downstairs. It became far too easy to get right into my day, skipping over my sit time and instead busying myself with laundry or jumping directly into work. And once you add other disruptors like home renovations and a new puppy into the mix, it’s way too easy to kiss that precious private morning time goodbye.
Tiny Habits reminded me of my bathroom meditations. They worked because I did them right before something I did every weekday—hopping into the shower before getting dressed for the day.
Now that I work from home my days are structured differently, and much less so. Sometimes I have just enough time to take a quick shower downstairs after taking care of Olive before my morning check-in call with my dad … and sometimes I take a bath upstairs later in the day. But I realized that there’s still one thing I do every day, no matter what.
I get out of bed.
Olive is very attached to me, so once she hears me get up she downdog-updogs her way over to my side of the bed from her crate. But I’ve learned how to silently sliiiiiide my way onto the floor next to my bed without her hearing or seeing me. I rest my back against the bed, facing the sunny window, and watch my breath for a few minutes until she sidles over
Somedays I get about five minutes to myself, and somedays it’s just a moment or two. But the fact that I make the time to sit still and take the opportunity to mindfully breathe before my day starts means that I get to prioritize those few moments for myself … so I can be available in a more grounded way for everyone else.
Is there a selfcare practice you can try tiny-habiting? Check out BJ’s book for inspiration if you need a little more guidance. I promise that you need only literal moments of time to start incorporating new habits—or replace ones you’d like to let go.
what i imagined i'd look like after 5 minutes of morning meditation
what i actually look like after 5 minutes of morning meditation ... and that's ok!
Many of us find comfort in re-runs—we seek out familiar TV shows or authors when we need a little dose of TLC. As a find my sea legs on Substack, I’m sifting through my online blog archives to share some favorite topics, many of which have interesting new relevance. I’ll be updating information on current offerings, but otherwise I’ll try to stay as true to the original as feels right to me. Thanks for (re-)reading!
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