I Didn't Feel Like Getting Up Today

Bed. Comfy, warm, luxurious even. Does anyone really want to get up in the morning, except maybe kids on Christmas morning? I certainly don't. But today I did it anyway.

Why Today?

I had to get up early yesterday, 5:45 a.m. I had a second alarm at 6:00 in case I missed the first one. I forgot to turn the alarms off and this morning I woke up to the 6:00 alarm. What did I do? I started scrolling on Instagram because I got a notification that someone I follow posted. Well, Howdy Doody! Social media got me, it pulled me in, close and tight, in the dark, in my bed. But, stop! What is this? It was a Mel Robbins post, a video that said everything, the truth, I needed to hear.

Mel Robbins said, "The secret to life, honestly, is learning to push yourself out of bed when you don't feel like it." I'm probably paraphrasing, but that's pretty close. She's right. And she filmed this when she was on top of a mountain, a gorgeous view, in Vermont. She said she didn't feel like getting out of bed and putting on her hiking boots to slog up a mountain, but she pushed past those feelings and did it anyway. "Of course, she did; she's Mel Robbins," is what I'd like to say, but that wouldn't help me at all, would it?

Why is Mel Robbins is where she is in life? Why do we even know who she is? She's where she is because she has learned self-discipline, and pushing herself out of bed when she doesn't feel like it. She's a normal human, like me, wanting more out of life than I have now. Even I can be like Mel Robbins.

I didn't feel like getting out of bed, but I did it anyway. I went to the living room with my yoga mat and did my yoga practice. It's 8:00 a.m. now, the time I'd normally wake up on a Sunday morning. Look what I've accomplished today. I've done my yoga practice, I meditated, gotten my coffee, and now I'm writing. This is the life I really want, unlike the life I would have had if I'd gotten up now. I feel ahead of my game for the first time in I don't know how long!

I used to get up by 5:30 a.m., do yoga and meditation, have a hot bath and journal, write a blog post and eat a raw vegan diet. I did that every day for more than a year and a half. I was always ahead of my game and I was achieving my goals, one by one. I felt confident in myself and my abilities. I could always count on myself. Always. I'd like to have something similar again and this is the closest I've come to it in ten years. I don't know that I want to be raw vegan again but I'm incorporating more raw food and it feels good. Yet, even as I write this, I am bombarded by self-doubt and fear that I won't be able to do it again, that I won't be able to keep it up.

I know, logically, I can do this again and again and again by pushing myself out of bed when I don't feel like it. And I know it will get much easier. Practicing self-discipline is the key to a good life, the life I deserve. A long time ago I heard that other cultures think of discipline as self-care. I keep trying to get that understanding deep into my cells. Little by little it should be getting there. I really need it to be there so I can have that life I deserve. Because Mel Robbins is right.

Imaginary Boundaries

I know how good it feels when I push past the boundaries I've built in my mind. Those boundaries exist only because I imagined them and put them there to make my life easy. Sometimes I need life to be easier than others. I have chronic pain. But I don't need it to be easy all the time. Allowing it to be easy far too often has held me back from the life I deserve. Allowing this has built up a struggle, a feeling of difficulty, which is even worse than pushing past imaginary boundaries.

Imaginary boundaries have created a life of depression and feelings of dread, resentment, blame toward myself, shame and embarrassment, a body that isn't working right and is burdened by fat, feelings of deep regret when I look in full-length mirrors, a boatload of financial struggle and anxiety about the financial struggle. Wow. I didn't know I had all those feelings. And the way through all of that is by practicing pushing through those boundaries. All I have to do is get out of bed when I don't feel like it.

Self-discipline is a muscle. It grows when you exercise it. You start by doing the easier things, then you can do the harder things, just like you would lift heavier weights in the gym. Now that I've started, all I have to do is to keep going.