The Living Word: 'Routine'

I have recently been working with the word 'routine'. It is a word I've judged as boring, mundane, lifeless, robotic and underwhelming due having lived most of my life within routines that I did not enjoy, and having them imposed upon me. Breaking free from the routine was like finally living, getting to the fun part of Life.

Due to this past history and the baggage the word was carrying with it in my mind I have struggled with implementing any kind of routine into my life. But when I opened the word up and found the solution for myself, I realized that a routine is necessary for the cumulative effect: that process of accumulating small steps to reach or attain big goals - and this is actually necessary for any and all goals of any and all sizes!

A routine is a path, or a 'route' towards any goal, and the process one must walk is the moment-to-moment, the small stuff, the teeny tiny little movements and decisions that come together to produce actions as a step-by-step process of learning, growing, trial and error, and then eventually moving those proverbial 'mountains'.

When I started looking at redefining my own Living Definition the Word 'Routine', what I saw that worked best for me was to clarify my goal for myself, because a 'routine' is a cumulative process, so it's important to be clear with oneself in terms of what one is accumulating towards ,and what will the end result be! And then I will 'let it go', so to speak, where 'the END GOAL' no longer becomes the focus of my daily participation.

What I focus on daily is breaking the goal down to the smallest possible steps, the teeny steps (routTINE/teeny), so the the route I am taking is seen not as that loooong and arduous struggle, but more like simple daily steps that I can celebrate!

ROUTINE: The Route of Teeny Steps.

How and where I am applying this in my life currently, is towards the goal of physical health and fitness, something I have been struggling with keeping consistent with. I started a routine of drinking water in the morning for three consecutive days. Once accomplished, I added a healthy breakfast for three days, and then 8 minutes of light exercise (with the help of an app for reminders and structure!). I kept the steps 'teeny'. Tiny goals that I can integrate over time until they become routine, and then I can add, grow, expand upon them. But for now, I focus on the task at hand, the daily route, the tiny steps it takes to walk a process, no rush, no pressure, no time, just Here in the moments of my Life, taking steps to honour me!

Day 257 - Chasing Life Instead of Living Life

What does it mean to ‘chase life’ rather than to ‘live life’?

For me it involved goals: academic goals, relationship goals, location goals, career goals, family goals and so on.

I would create a goal for myself and then figure out a path to get there, and I would walk that path, adjusting along the way. For me, at the time, this was sufficient and the 'right' way to 'fully live life', because I was accomplishing the things I set out to do.

The ‘chasing’ comes in when I would project the goal into the future, and then project ‘who I would be’ when I got there, thinking and believing that my self-experience would change once I accomplished the goal.

The thing is, when I would complete the goal, I would still inevitably be the same person. I would have the same insecurities, the same uncertainties, and I also noticed that new insecurities and uncertainties would open up once the goal was reached, as the habit and pattern of participation into such things in my mind still existed.

It is humbling to look back over the past decade and realize that throughout all my accomplishments, all the effort and hard work, I was missing one huge, important main ingredient: SELF HERE.

I never focused on sinking into my own skin, integrating into my environment, and establishing a foundation of self wherever I was, because I was always moving, changing directions, living places temporarily, keeping only one foot in the present moment and another foot in the future projection: constantly chasing ideas as future goals. 

The consequence of this is that there is little to no SELF (who I am, as I am RIGHT NOW) in the goals, there is only a projected version of ‘who I will become then’, only once I get there, as if the walking of the path and the attaining of the goal was the most important defining action that would shape and create me.

My first reaction to this realization was that I had been doing it all wrong and now I am back at square one, but these actions or elements of the process of self-creation are essential ingredients, and all is not lost. Along the way, I self-introspected, gained self-understanding and awareness, developed skills and qualities that I now have and cannot be taken away. I also gained work experience, degrees, certifications and money, which can serve me now and in the future.

What I was missing was a solid foundation of ‘self here’. Self Here meaning, the understanding and realization that I can be fully whole, fulfilled and present in the Here/Now moment, that I belong here, wherever I am, simply because it is where I have placed myself in awareness. I created a path, and I am walking it – I don’t have to wait to attain something or accomplish anything in order to develop these things, I have everything I need to build my SELF right here and right now, wherein everything that I am not satisfied with or that I want to develop can only happen right here, right now in the present moment wherever I am. And it is not only possible, but rather absolutely essential that I do so, otherwise I will never become the potential I see, because I had placed it in the future, in a job, in a location, at a certain salary and with a certain life.

To be continued in my next blog….

Day 86- Moving Forward, Missing the NOW

While I was talking to someone today, it was pointed out to me that I have the tendency to seek ‘forward motion.’ Within this tendency, I look for signs of accomplishments which would indicate to me that I am taking steps towards my goals, in order to have the experience of forward motion. For example, I’m job hunting at the moment, and it hasn’t even been a week, and I was talking about how I don’t have a job yet, and how I want to have the job NOW so that I can have ‘forward motion’ and be saving money and getting on with my big plans. The problem within this is that, I’m literally taking on this stance of constantly looking into the future and judging my current progress as if I’m looking back at myself. So I am , in my mind, waaaay ahead, looking back at me Here and being like, “common, catch up”. So instead of living in the one Here moment that is actually real, participating in my life with presences and awareness, I’m furiously rushing within myself to catch up to… myself.

When I go into this ‘mode’ or character, I experience myself as constantly ‘checking in’, judging my progress and getting pretty down on myself, as if I’m never doing enough. The consequence of this is and has been that I actually work less effectively than I am able. This is because every little task is already a failure, because it won’t get me tHere, because I can only ever be right Here, within my current experience.

In the next few blogs, I will wright out this character that is in a constant race from Here, in order to see how I created this experience for myself so that I can stop and change it. It’s going to be really interesting because, I can already feel I’m having many resistances towards really looking at this point. It is a very familiar pattern in my life, and it really hasn’t served me at all. It’s quite stressful and it makes me anxious. It also feels disempowering because in my mind I want to be tHere, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t get away from my current experience. It requires time and steps to work towards my goals, it can’t just happen like a fast food order- as I have been taught by media, technology and MacDonald’s. I need to slooooow down, and bring myself back to Here, and take each step with a firmly planted foot.