Happy New Year!!
Yes, It’s March 1st. I’m late. Please forgive me.
The New Year came in amidst a lot of activity and confusion; and instead of feeling I was in a moment of endless possibilities and new beginnings, it felt really heavy and burdensome. I thought it was just because I was busy cleaning my house, hosting parties and cleaning up again. Partially, that is true. But even when I wasn’t in motion, I couldn’t find the clear headspace I needed to take in the new year and plan out the next few months. I couldn’t figure out what the mental fog was about.
Leave it to Facebook to show you in vivid color how messed up you were last year! January 2019 was a really shitty month. My Step-Dad’s mother passed away, one of my oldest friends lost her newborn baby, and then my Granddad died on his 90th birthday-while we were at his birthday party! It was a really rough month and winter. But that was last year, right?
If you know grief, you know that she is a sneaky bitch. She knocks you down with the initial hit, gets into your cells and sucker punches you when you least expect it. Even when you don’t anticipate the anniversary, she knows and she’s coming for you. So you take your lumps and keep trying to put one foot in front of the other. That’s all you can do. You can try to stuff it down or rush through the stages, but grief will find her way. Whether you are conscious of it or not, your body, as well as your soul, holds grief. What the soul tries to forget, the cells remember.
As the month dragged on and each anniversary passed with its own sad acknowledgment, I began to feel a little more clarity. Just a little. Then all of a sudden it was February. February is a cool month. The birth month of two of my sisters, Valentine’s Day and February School Vacation all make this usually brutally cold month rather tolerable. I still wasn’t feeling particularly renewed by the New Year hype.
I did catch a few hours of solitude one day and I created a Life Map. I’m excited to share this process with you and I will be breaking this process down in future posts and videos. While the drawn-out map looked like an awesome and fulfilling life (as well as a little overwhelming), my daily existence just felt like a jumbled rush of semi-completed ”to do” lists. There were still some major disconnections that I hadn’t quite figured out and I was totally dialing it in every day. At work and at home, I was kind of a zombie. A really fast-moving and directionless zombie.
One weekend while at church, the Pastor challenged members to a 21-day fast. Connected to Daniel’s fast, so forth and so on (I was late to church and missed the intro), this act of self-denial, discipline and dedication is designed to bring us closer to God. Our Pastor led us through thinking about what particular thing is really getting in our way. The thing which we are dependent on that doesn’t serve us, or at worst prevents us from being who God has called us to be. Some people chose to fast social media for 21 days. Some fasted a certain food or type of food. Others fasted alcohol. I really had to think deeply about what habit has been really getting in my way. BING….it came to me and I knew that this one act was the first thing I did in the morning and it immediately sent my day into a downward spiral. Are you ready? The habit that I needed to kick was:
HITTING THE SNOOZE BUTTON!
I have decided to fast the snooze button. Why? It was ruining my life. I know this sounds dramatic, but think about it. At first glance, it just makes you late! I was setting the alarm to go off at 5 AM, I really needed to be up at 5:30 AM, but I wouldn’t get my ass out of bed until 6 AM. At which point, I’m going to be late. Every single day. As I began to think about it more deeply, hitting the snooze button signified much more. It was the act of an undisciplined person. Someone lying to themselves that “just one more” would be ok. It wasn’t working. Not working with food, wine or sleep. According to sleep.org, that little bit of sleep gives the false sense of gaining more rest, when in reality you end up jolted again out of sleep before you finish a sleep cycle. You feel more tired after the snooze button which prompts you to hit the button again! You wake up at a different time every day, your body doesn’t know what the hell you’re trying to do. Like, “Hello Cassandra! What time do you NEED to get out of bed in the morning? What the hell are you doing?”
Hitting the snooze button for me was also an act of someone who did not keep their commitments. I wasn’t keeping my commitments! I wasn’t keeping my commitment to my daughter to give her a calm and loving start to her day (if I’m late, she’s late and I’m rushing her). I wasn’t keeping my commitment to my daughter’s education. Getting her to school late sets her off and makes drop off a terrible experience. I know it’s preschool, but am I teaching her that it’s not important for her to be on time? I wasn’t keeping my commitment to being organized. I wasn’t keeping my commitment to my employer to be on time! Can you say, hot mess?
Finally, hitting the snooze button was reflective to me of someone who was not dedicated to self-care. Mentally, wouldn’t it be nice to be of the frame of mind to wake up and say a prayer of gratitude? I know some people who read their Bible in the morning and journal. I’m not even talking about that. Those people are obscene and should be banished to some early-bird island! I would just want to be able to have a quick prayer of thanks and set an intention for my day. That’s hard to do when you wake up cussin’ and jumping into the shower! Given all of my muscular-skeletal issues, it would also be nice to hit a couple of Sun Salutations in the morning to lengthen and stretch. Take care of my body a little bit before the rush of the day steals away my time. That would be pretty cool, right? I’m letting the snooze button and fallacy of extra sleep steal these small but precious practices that could add so much to my life.
So there you are… Snooze Button has to go. Because I am a train wreck right now, I missed the 21-day collective fasting at church. However, it IS Lent! Another time frame of self-denial. So I’m going to do it. It’s time for a new level of existence. Not hitting the snooze button sounds like such a small step; but no one finishes a marathon in a single leap, right? One step at a time, one wake up at a time. I can be a more focused, spiritually centered, disciplined and more organized woman, wife, mama and employee.
What’s getting in your way? What is one little thing that if you changed, could lead the way to you living a better version of your life?
