When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Buddhist Proverb
I didn’t know it, but this past October I was ready and, son of a gun, if the teacher didn’t appear! On a spring-like October day, my wife Hannah and sister-in-law Becky spent four hours of our Saturday at Willow Femmechild’s workshop, Create a Life You Love, at the Osher Lifelong learning Institute on the campus of University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine. Ever have a workshop where you feel a good vibe and then bam, it clicks that this really is going to have something for you? That was such a day for me. I realized that a morning ritual was just what I needed to set my day off on the right foot.
As I am want to do, I immediately started my five-part Morning Ritual the very next day: exercising, writing in my gratitude journal, repeating my affirmations, praying, and meditating.
Exercising: Now in my sixties, I have at times balky but highly functioning knees; a few years back, I had physical therapy for the dreaded frozen shoulder. But mainly a lifetime of exercising has served me well. Now, each morning I stretch and stretch, lift some light five-pound weights, and do leg lifts for a total of 20 minutes. Being committed (exercising five times per week), not insane (doing it every day), I am more likely to exercise if I am not an idiot. I used to compromise these exercises by watching ESPN’s Sports Center as well. Multi-tasking is a myth for me. I wind up doing two or more things poorly. Do you know what the best exercise is? Yoga? Running? Pilates? Maybe walking? It’s the one you will actually do. Find your own way.
Gratitude Journal: Once done exercising, I settle into a couch in our skylight room and take out my spiral notebook and write a list of gratitudes in my journal. Such gratitude journals come highly recommended by Dr. Wayne Dyer, Sarah Ban Breathnach, and Tal Ben-Shahar. I’ve been a journal writer since the mid-70s, thanks to Lynn Nelson, a mentor of mine at Arizona State University. I began journal writing in earnest to prove to myself that I was a writer. As a middle school writing teacher, I thought it imperative that I actually write if I am going to teach writing. Wanting to write isn’t being a writer. Writing does make one a writer. During one stretch I wrote for 2000+ days in my journal without missing a single day (What broke my streak was forgetting til 130A one night. I sat up and realized what I had done or really hadn’t done. At first bummed, but I then thought. Damn, I am a writer.) I am in the midst of my 140th journal.
What to write in a journal? Here are a few thoughts. Write as if no one is going to read your words, otherwise the internal censor/critic makes a mess of the writing. Let the creative self go; save the critic for revision. It may be that you do publish from your journal but first write from the heart without an audience other than yourself in mind. Certainly the events of the day and a reaction to them are starting points. I often found I wrote best when I was struggling. I had issues to deal with or troubles to address. My journal was a refuge at times. When our then four year old daughter Robyn was in the hospital for treatment for leukemia, my journal helped me record the moments of her life and mine. Writing there insured that the experience would not be forgotten. It turned out my journal writing during the years our family dealt with Robyn's illness became the basis for my first book, Sweet Dreams, Robyn.
Still there were times when I had trouble getting started. Not anymore. I take my spiral notebook and write the word Gratitudes at the top of the paper. My goal is to fill the page and write five gratitudes. I typically thank people that have come into my life in the past day or so. I appreciate good weather. I note the abundance in my life and that I can travel. Regularly I include my wife Hannah and the happiness she brings to my life. Tal Ben-Shahar quotes research that says that a close, nurturing, equitable, intimate, lifelong companionship with one’s best friend is a top predictor of happiness. I appreciate I have the time and money to be a member of a local gym. I am blessed to have a Sunday church to go to. I am grateful that I’ve rediscovered the Serenity Prayer and that I play online Scrabble with family and friends. I’m blessed our kids are happy people. Many gratitudes are often simple; other times right from the heart.
It might be instructive if I copied a page from my journal, but I didn’t write the gratitudes for publication. I write them for me to begin my day acknowledging the blessings in my life. I start my day thinking of the good in my life. It gets me in the mode of one of Hannah’s favorite expression, Life is Good.
What I think about and thank about I can start to bring about.
Next week Morning Rituals (part 2): Affirmations, prayer, and meditation.
Thanks, Dan!
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