I woke up. Just woke up. The light filtered in through my heavy eyelids like dancing stars. My eyes were scratchy, full of sand and grit almost glued shut.  It could not be true what I had been dreaming as my waking was so real.   With a deep breath and one of those stretching yawns that make your toes curl I slowly started to move. Gosh it felt good. No aches, no pain just an adrenaline rush of a healthy body greeting the morning.

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Mornings are a gift every day of our lives. A time when we sometimes feel most alive, rejuvenated from a deep sleep. Almost younger and suspended in those early moments before the day’s activities might crash around us drawing our energy and robbing our vitality. When we wake we regain control of our conscious thought.  How an we stay awake? 

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We wake hundreds of mornings in our lives.  Most often in the media we hear about how important sleep is, how being sleep-deprived is so detrimental, multitudes of ways to prepare to go to sleep such as meditating, reducing screen time, reading, listening to music, taking medication.  Much has been written on sleep.

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What has been written on how to wake up?  Are we really awake?  Do we move through our days with vibrancy, energy, aliveness, clear thoughts and resiliency or do we move through the days half-asleep not noticing and losing our energy that our day began with?   We know the term 'time management' -using our time wisely each day.  Think too about energy management that fully engages us as noted in The Power of Full Engagement (Swartz and Loehr).  When we are really awake we engage our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual senses.  We listen to calls for action, we are creative and innovative, we are truly woken-up when we engage in the world and make a difference with our day. 

 

Note: for an exercise related to this topic see Time and Energy Equation in the book Tri-namics: Leadership Wisdom for the Health System by Debbie Payne and Erna Hagge, Deberna International. 

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You may also download a pdf of some exercises from the book on my Writing Page.

 

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