A little over two weeks ago, I read an article on Hands Free Mama that made me pause. It has a great, catchy title: Break This Morning Habit to Create More Time & Goodness in Your Day. That sounds good, right?
Can you guess what the habit was?
I think I already knew before I even clicked through, but reading on–seeing all the “goodness” that could fill my day instead–hit me squarely in the heart. In the best way.
So I decided that the next morning, I’d follow through: I’d turn off my alarm, and get up without checking my phone.
Smart-Phone Sober Mornings
Have you tried this mama?
Ugh. It is a nasty habit to break.
I don’t think I realized how compulsive I felt about my tablet until I laid in bed not looking at it in the morning. It was like a bad (REALLY bad) chocolate craving. The more I tried not to think about it, the more tightly my mind insisted that I needed to start my day with a little internet catchup.
Just check my email.
Or, okay, facebook?
And I mean, really–somebody probably emailed me. Maybe just now. Like again.
It’s probably urgent.
Think I was tagged in anything on Instagram overnight?
But I’d promised myself not to, so I stuck to it!
Got out of bed and started my day.
Mama: It. Was. GREAT.
I felt lighter.
Smarter without the Smart
And, not to be ironic, but I actually felt kind of smarter without the smartphone, too. Because my brain wasn’t filled up with junk.
Have you ever thought about how much information we take in when we flick on our screens?
Advertisements, sales, new wonderful must-have products and freebies (I’m looking at you, Shutterfly) filling up our inboxes and sidebars.
Emails with problems we can’t deal with but will stew over all day long until we can deal with them.
News about everybody and their mom (literally) flashing up on facebook, instagram, and the blogs we have to check because we have early-morning FOMO.
And all those things would clog up my brain before I’d even said good morning to my sweetheart or kissed my kiddo’s tousled heads. I was already somewhere else before I even started my day with them.
15 Days of “research”
Now I haven’t been perfect but I’ve been mostly very good. (The iPad is extra tough to resist on Saturday mornings because I love a good lounge when there’s no official start-time to the day.) But I’ve passed the two-week mark of screen-free mornings, and research suggests that I’m all about it.
I see my children when they come in to say good morning. (I’m still maybe a little groggy/grumpy, okay. But I see their eyes!)
I feel my body waking up–the muscle kinks, the long stretch, the warm wonderfulness of curling up for one more minute under my blankets before I have to get up.
I turn to look and my cute husband and watch him sleep (in a not-creepy way, because marriage automatically makes this cute) and kiss him good morning.
I notice the color of the morning light–in summer it is yellow, but lately it’s been more cool-blue and wintery. Like it can tell the temperatures are dipping.
I feel easier, more focused, more purposeful as I start my morning routine: dressed, bed made, laundry started, dishwasher unloaded, lift the the bed-headed toddler from her crib and kiss her cheeks as many times as I can.
I don’t know, mama.
I guess I’m just more me because I’m connecting slowly, and one at a time, with the people and work that fill me and soothe me now. Instead of quickly and all at once with a lot of jpegs and status messages that clogged up my brain.
Give it a try tomorrow, mama.
When your alarm goes off, leave the phone on your nightstand. And see what happens next.
xo,
Jamie
p.s. You really should read the original article, too. It was wonderful!
