Le Evening Routine

                               

It's time. Time to sort out le evening routine, other than facebook, tv, and generally wasting time, when I actually could be doing something beneficial and nice, for myself.

Is this you? Or, are you organised?

I do have a (non-) routine. Of course I do:

• I clean my face
• do some dishes (usually)
• get out my clothes for tomorrow (but I have been very tardy with this)
• I have stopped drinking my evening 500 mls of water, due to not being organised, when I moved home. I loved that little evening water drinking routine! Why have I been so slack?!
• put on hand lotion before hopping into bed 

Ggrr. How annoying that I stopped doing beneficial things. I am wondering if the cold has something to do with it. Padding down the hall into a cold room to fluff around? I think not. But the truth is that I would like to stop thinking and behaving like this.

I read of a process where you write things down (that again!). This is my write-it-down, and then sort it out, plan:

• what you really do each evening 
• what you have to do each evening
• what you want to do each evening
• what your ideal evening routine would actually look like

We always have habits

The thing is, in one way or another, generally we are creatures of habit. I can see that, just looking at my non-routine. If we watch ourselves, we do the same things in the same way, and for some it's at the same times. A habit is something that we repeatedly do, almost without thinking. So, I think that the difficulty with changing our habits for any reason, and in this case, it's to make new routines, we are going against automatic, unthinking, patterns of behaviour. 

Behaviour, because habits in this case are what we are doing. It's a tall order to change things which we do. But, it can be done. If we want to. 

So, perhaps the first step really, should be why we want to change things around. Before the above list, really. Why do I want to change my evening (non-) routine? Or, the slack evening habits that I now have?

What do I want to do each evening?
And why?

• resume my water drinking. Because it's so cold, I might just Suck It Up and do warm water. Cold water when it's cold? Not if I can help it. I found that I just look better, and feel better when I wake up, the following morning, after my 500 mls of water between dinner and bed. A couple of winters ago, I was having hot water, lemon, and honey, in a giant soup mug each evening and that was nice. So, there are options other than the cold water thing.
• I am moving my main shower to before bed, after I used up most of the hot water recently, and left a mostly cold shower for the next person. I really didn't feel good about myself being so thoughtless.
• I want to go back to have a quick (very quick) face massage before bed. Mostly because I want to practice the facial pressure points which I have learnt and can use in healing. But also because, well, it's a nice thing to do.
• I'd like to do a few classical floor poses before bed. Release the days tensions, keep myself supple, and yes, the feel-good factor.
• I want to resume evening meditation. Why did I ever stop? I don't feel the need to "have to" do it. But I'd like to get back into it again. The ole stress release thing again. I prefer the "Short and Sweet" and "Just Do It" style, rather than making a production of it.

Is this too much? Is it doable? We shall see. I might tweek it, but I'll give it a go.