Day 380: Continuing on Waking up efficiently

15012014

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for sleeping “too much”, not questioning my definition of “too much sleep”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define 6 hours of sleep to be the ideal amount of sleep with no real evidence of this actually being the amount of sleep that my body needs to recharge, thus also defining less than 6 hours as “too little” sleep and more than 6-7 hours “too much” sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my ideals, not realizing that my ideals have not been constructed according to the physical reality to function as goals that support my living, but that I have instead constructed my ideals based on what others appear to be doing and what I ought to do to be as good as others – to be accepted by others – to not be less than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I cannot construct my sleeping patterns efficiently, I will have failed as a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure my worth based on how efficiently and supportively I structure my life, thus feeling like a failure when something doesn't work out (such as sleeping at the moment), not realizing that my definition of “supportive structuring” is based only on how much I get done / how much I achieve or accomplish, thus ignoring e.g. my physical and mental well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I sleep more than 7 hours I am “wasting time” that I could instead use on “getting stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my body might need more than 7 hours of sleep depending on what it's recovering from, and that forcing myself out of bed without sufficient rest is to compromise my health as well as my ability to “get stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that “getting stuff done” (work, study, whatever tasks I have) is sustainable when and as and ONLY when it's done in consideration of the physical reality – such as the well-being of my body, the physical organism I inhabit.

• I commit myself to stop compromising sleep, rest and recovery in order to achieve merit in the eyes of others.
• I commit myself to arrange myself enough time for sleep, rest and recovery; In cases where I need to momentarily compromise my sleep/rest, I commit myself to arrange myself time to recover from this compromise sufficiently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are two kinds of tiredness – a physical and a mental tiredness – and that when I wake up in the morning I am able to discern between the two, and thus also able to understand and decide whether to stay in bed or to get up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when I have woken up in the morning, to ignore my awareness of the fact that I am mentally tired and continue sleeping regardless of my awareness of this fact with the excuse that “I have nothing to do” - “I might as well sleep more”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I stay in bed out of mental tiredness I am escaping something in my reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that getting out of bed is a burdensome task, thus anticipating the moment of getting up and all the things I need to do, thus creating a desire to stay in bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning routine (washing up, yoga, cleaning the dishes) because I have found some of the tasks difficult and burdensome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning yoga exercise because often when I do it I need to push myself over a threshold out of my comfort zone even though I know my entire body will feel better after the yoga.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to the resistance towards yoga, thus skipping some mornings and eventually not doing it at all, thus also making it easier for me to give in to the resistance to get out of bed at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that expansion and growth requires constant pushing and discomfort before it becomes an effortless part of my living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to integrate yoga and exercise into my living – a form of physical self-care – I need to unwind the roots and habits of stagnation I have grown and become tangled up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that slouching, dragging my feet, sitting down and being still in the morning when I wake up is a habit of not moving – a habit that I can change and replace with another – and that I have learned this method of waking up by observing the people I grew up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my family's culture of waking up – making oneself as comfortable as possible to “soften the blow” – is not the only possible way of starting one's day.

• I commit myself to do my yoga routine each morning, unless I am physically unable to do it (sickness etc), as I now see, realize and understand that getting used to this small push every morning I get myself used to discomfort, thus supporting myself with all situations where I need to deal with discomfort in order to grow and expand. (This is pretty cool now that I think of it this way!)
• I commit myself to expand my yoga routine little by little, adding one move to the routine when and as the routine needs more physical challenge.
• I commit myself to experiment with other forms of morning exercise, such as taking a walk or running.
• I commit myself to do something physical every morning before I have breakfast.
• I commit myself to explore what else I could do before I have breakfast, for example writing, studying and meditation.

Also, an idea I got in the last post that I want to try out:

• When and as I do not have anything to wake up to the following morning - such as a meeting, a lecture or work - I commit myself to go through my tasks for the day in the previous evening and decide on the first task I will tackle the following day.

It's been working out well so far!

Note to self: the word "efficient" has a negative tone to me, and using it here makes it feel as if waking up "efficiently" couldn't be enjoyable but that I'd be gritting my teeth while doing it, lol. I'll return to this word and the concept of efficiency in posts to come.