8. Getting back on track
Last week you may or may not have noticed there was no Mindful Memo. I hurt my leg in pilates and was pretty much laying down for a week! The pain was relentless and my brain couldn’t concentrate.
It was one of those incidents that forces you to rest even when you don’t want to!
But what I have noticed in the aftermath of this health hiccup is how much my screen time has gone up, how late I’m going to bed and then, of course, how hard it is to get up in the morning. I’ve hardly meditated or exercised and I have watched WAY too many English lady detective shows.
Yes that’s right, I spent a week on the couch scrolling instagram and watching detective shows until 11pm!
So today it’s time to reset and kick these shitty habits back to where they came from.
There are so many reasons why we would need a reset to find our rhythm again - sickness, travel, burnout, period or at the moment it might be the winter blues.
So this is what I’m putting in place today to make this coming week more mindful and in turn, a happy and productive week.
Social media boundaries. 15 mins in the morning and 15 mins in the evening. I’ll admit this is going to be HARD! It’s quite an unconscious addiction I have and part of my day job is social media management. SO being there mindfully will be important to breaking this.
Less watching and more reading. This won’t be as hard as the social media detox, but will require making a conscious effort to pick up the kindle instead of flicking on the TV. I find reading a much more mindful act of consuming entertainment. I’m always so distracted by my phone and often only half watch the TV.
Bedtime routine. Instead of going to bed at 11pm or almost 12am, this week it’s lights out at 10pm. Meditation at 9pm and then in bed with my book for half and hour or so.
I know I’m not alone in slipping into bad habits with staying up late and mindless scrolling, I’ve been talking to my friends about it all week!
Your’s might be different unconscious habits that aren’t serving you anymore, but know you are not alone. Sometimes living on autopilot is about survival.
And don’t get me wrong, breaking habits is not easy and I want you to know it can often take more than just setting up a few boundaries and hoping they stick.
But I do believe each time we identify what isn’t making us feel good, each time we make small changes and each time we last another couple of days, we are breaking cycles and offering ourselves the gift of a mindful life.
If this is resonating with you and you’d like to make some changes too, PLEASE feel free to share them with me! Doing it together is always better.
Libby x
Opal I’ve been experimenting with this app to lock me out of social media. So far it’s working well because it makes you pause before being able to turn off the lock, in which time I usually realise I was picking it up out of habit and not with purpose!
One Sec My little sister has recommended this app as her social media blocker. She loves it, so I thought I would add it too because it’s worth trying a few before committing to purchasing. Opal works better for me and One Sec works better for Jess.
As a free alternative you can also set screen time limits in your phone settings for different apps. It is easy to set up and use, but unfortunately they are not strong enough to keep me off Instagram *shakes head in shame*