Yesterday was the first time in months that I didn’t start my day with yoga since, quite literally, I have made this the habit of all habits since about mid-summer rather than the two days on, one day off rhythm that it was before. It happened more-or-less by accident as we had a fridge being delivered very early and had to be ready for the removal of the old one plus the installation of the new so I was up and dressed, standing in my kitchen at an hour when my body was barely functioning. I saw “no point” in starting my yoga practice when the doorbell could go at any moment. The delivery team had been and gone within the hour but, by then, I was so hungry for breakfast that I thought I might pass out….so my day got started and I never got back onto my mat as I like to do it at the start of my day, not in the middle…and so my day felt “off” from there-on-in. I dropped into compulsive habits from the outset, spending far too much time in pursuit of tasks that weren’t my joy and which dominated my morning; becoming more and more frustrated with them all the time. I also noticed my scapula go into painful spasm, for no apparent reason on my dog-walk, something that hadn’t happened for a very long time and my body felt wooden and heavy all day long.

This morning, though we were still expecting a very early delivery (our “new” appliance turned out to be damaged so a replacement was coming out) I got up even earlier than that and went straight to my yoga mat, having learned my lesson. I was so half-asleep that I could hardly see to walk there in my still-dark house yet it felt like a giant bodily sigh of relief when I settled into my routine and I spent an extra long, languorous time going through my paces.

This reminded me of something so intrinsic to how much better I experience my days than, say, a year ago and its this thing where my early morning yoga is non-negotiable. Even on Christmas Day, on the days when we had an early flight to catch, on holidays in hotel rooms with awkward proportions on the floor, on days when I’ve been called to do the school run, woken with a pain or a headache, felt out of sorts (especially then!), when its been especially dark, cold or someone in my family has been having a crisis, I’ve still headed straight to that yoga mat. Come rain or shine and before I eat, think and, preferably, before I talk I go there and shut the door on all but my inner sanctum.

This is THE thing that – I believe – has made all the difference to my life. It centres me, it drops me back into myself, right into the lock-on position of my heart’s core and my energetic root system, connecting my astral travels of the night hours into the handset of the earth energies that gravitate me and become the pathways of choice that make up my days. Like a handset being put back onto its cradle as a means of orienting and recharging itself, this simple routine ensures I have what is needed to sustain myself for the whole of the forthcoming day, however far I need to travel from that charger unit. Above all, this simple priority PUTS...ME…FIRST and makes a declaration to all, including myself, that this is where I reside as an absolute priority in my own life.

So, today, not only do I feel very different to yesterday, like I have been dropped back into my own energy field where, yesterday I felt somewhat mis-aligned from the very outset, I also feel deeply appreciative of the tangible difference. I feel energised and subtly vibed-up in a supremely positive way and deeply intuitive as though plugged-in to all the subtle sensory sockets of my own life. I feel like my most divinely influenced guidance-system has been polished by such a positive start and that I am therefore less inclined to make obsessive or self-defeating choices as the day unfolds. It generally feels like its going to be a good and probably a GREAT day, whatever presents itself…and I literally can’t stop smiling. If this is all it takes, I half-wonder what took me so long and yet I know how persistent that resistance to small things that serve us so well can be when they require some sticking power or tenacity to make them work in our lives…at least to start with. Having experienced the contrast, I know this routine is for keeps now and am so grateful to have discovered the key that its is in the door to my own best experience.