As I mentioned a few days ago, practice — as I’ve come to understand it — is really any solo, sacred, single-tasking time that we set aside for ourselves to come back to ourselves.

(Which sounds like … esoteric, maybe? But I had this exact conversation with a new student who came into my yoga studio for the first time today. She shared a bit about her history and experience with yoga so far and how she’s mostly not practiced in the 10 years since she started having her kids. And I asked her, “Ok, so why are you here now? What are you looking for in your practice?” and she replied — I kid you not: “To come back to myself.” BOOM. That’s practice.)

And as I also mentioned a few days ago, the components that could possibly make up practice are myriad: painting, walking, yoga, breathing, meditation, chopping wood, carrying water, gardening, pottery, playing piano, fill in your blank.

So, why these three pieces of short-form practice in 40 Early Mornings?

• “Spiritual” reading (the essays you read right here every day);

• Meditation, specifically of the (nearly) silent, (usually) seated, still(-ish) variety; and

• Written Reflection

Well, quite simply, these are my elements to daily practice.

And I would never teach you something I didn’t know and practice myself. I can’t responsibly teach a damn thing that’s not deeply integrated into my being. 40 Early Mornings is my practice, embodied in program form to be shared with you.

But there’s important information about these choices that can be found in the “why” behind them.

I came to these three pieces, specifically, because they best serve me as antidotes to modern life.

Here’s what I mean by that…

Modern life, especially where I live in the United States (and owning and acknowledging all the forms of privilege I have), is amazing — filled with so many conveniences and access to a billion things in any second that, if I had been born a hundred years earlier, I would not experience or enjoy today.

And yet … we all know that this modern life comes with its downsides, too.

There are frankly so many things about modern life that take me away from myself, make me lose myself, and cause me to doubt myself, in any give moment, on any given day.

Here are some:

Comparing myself to anything I see on the phone that I nearly always hold in my hand. Numbing myself out or escaping my discomfort or fear by scrolling through endless headlines, articles, essays, stories, listicles, things to buy, pictures, podcasts etc. on that same device. The storylines I inherited from my parents, my upbringing, the patriarchy, late-stage capitalism / you name it. The feeling that I’m always behind, despite all the hustle and rushing. That I’ll never be enough, despite all my efforts. But I better not stop trying, lest I fade immediately into absolute obscurity, never to be seen or heard from again.

And sometimes, I’m just really stressed, tired, and hangry.

So these three pieces of short-form practice serve as the antidote to my modern woes:

• “Spiritual reading” actually cuts across many ancient wisdom traditions and cultures, from Yoga to the Catholicism I was raised on — those canonical texts we look to for answers to our Big Questions. But rather than the traditional texts, I mostly find myself drawn toward reading anything that reminds me of spirit. Poetry, especially. Song lyrics, often. And also many books from my favorite teachers and writers, including Parker Palmer, Pema Chödrön, Mary Oliver, Robin Wall Kimmerer, to name a few. The writing I do here is a lot of call & response to those writers and their work. And it’s also my way of not getting sucked too far into the infinite number of consumables we can access on our phone, which — to paraphrase the Irish poet & priest (and favorite of mine) John O’Donohue — often feel “too small for our souls.” And listen, when you leave 40 EM, you can absolutely read whatever you want instead of these essays (in fact, you can even start doing that now!). Just make sure whatever you read brings you closer to yourself, not further away.

• Meditation. Quite simply, with our constant noise and rushing and needing to fill in all the blank space with more stuff and more doing, it is RADICAL to decide to sit silently and still for 20 minutes each day. It’s an absolute quiet revolution. To practice returning to yourself when you get carried away. And then eventually to practice staying with yourself when you return. To simply BE, without needing to “to do,” without needing to accomplish, achieve, excel, impress, strive, hustle, hard work or do a DAMN thing to prove that you are worthy. Your simply BEing here has value. And that’s what meditation allows us to practice.

• Written Reflection. Journaling is my lifeblood; it is breathing to me. Whatever Joan Didion said along the lines of “I write to know what I think” — me too, Joan, me too. I also think of it like assisted meditation — which might be helpful, if you find either meditation or journaling intimidating. Krista Tippett, one of the great spiritual seekers of our time, wrote in her book Becoming Wise, “I’m a person who listens for a living.  I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard.” I think about that often when I think about the power of written reflection. We live in a world FILLED with shouting voices, including some of the VERY loud stories going on inside our own heads. But over time, with the combination of meditation and journaling, we begin to discern those voices that are actually not US from our own true intuition and deeper knowing. And the voice of the soul often starts out quietly, patiently, just waiting to offer us its beauty and wisdom, once we get curious and consistent enough to listen for it.

Enough from me. Now its your turn to consider why and how practice can be an antidote for your modern life too.

see you right back here tomorrow,
Cath

Meditation: Keep going with our body-based practice for 2 more days. Up to 11 minutes! You’re on a roll!

Reflection: Two ways to take this today — one, what elements would you choose if you could start from scratch designing your own short-form practice? And/or how’s the menu I’ve provided you so far going? What would you tweak? Where are you finding ease? Where are you meeting resistance?