I tend to get stressed in the morning. I am used to having a routine, but with an eleven month old and an almost 11 year old who needs to get to school, there is a bit of juggling and flexibility required. I resist this. For some reason, I want to know when I am going to have my coffee, when I am going to shower, when I am going to have breakfast, who is going to pack a lunch, who is going to make my son breakfast. And I get cranky and stressed when I do not know these things. Yet, every morning so far, the things that have needed to get done have gotten done. Despite my stress.
What is interesting to me is that in the work world I am much more flexible. Why is that?
I suppose, like many things, morning flexibility could be a matter of habit.
If it is, it is clearly a habit that I need to work on.
At the same time, though, there can be an acceptance of the feeling of stress. It could just be that mornings are stressful, that a lot needs to happen quickly, and that my feeling that it should be different is only getting in the way. My wife, after all, seems to deal with the morning routine with ease.
It is a paradox, that we can only change the moment when we stop resisting it. As I notice my own feelings of stress, I also see that they are changing and lifting. Accepting stress, or even embracing it, can ease its grip.
The only answer seems to be to accept what is. Even when it is not what you like. For the time being, morning stress can be my practice.
Jeff
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