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We get up in the morning with a vague sense of dread. Then we pick up our phones to flesh out what it’s about.
Me too. I reach for my phone immediately upon waking; and then I ‘doom scroll,’ checking my news sources for the latest awful thing going on in the world.
I do this without thinking, and I do it every day.
But recently I busted myself for my own hypocrisy. I realized that I professed the importance of tending our consciousness like a garden…while regularly filling my mind with toxicity first thing in the morning. Why did I even want all that toxicity? What is it about feeling so bad that makes it addictive? I think part of the answer is that if I can imagine myself living through these dark times, then it gives me some illusionary sense of control.
Whatever. Let’s look at how we might stop filling up with poison so early in the day. Let’s look at what we might do differently.
I came across the following ritual that some Buddhist nuns engage in every morning. A ritual that imbues them with calm no matter what is going on externally in their lives. We don’t have to be nuns or monks to follow their example…but we might benefit in a huge way if we did. Check it out.
