Monday Compassion

I didn’t sleep well last night. Blame it on the daylight savings time change. Or blame it on my brain that wanted to analyze things when I wanted to be sleeping. So when my husband and kids woke up and it was time to get up, I didn’t wanna. You know how that goes. But this wasn’t just my typical Monday morning blahs. Another week. Gotta get myself going.

No. This was I can’t get up. This was I feel my winter demons lurking nearby. This was ok, I met my running goal and my birthday’s over, now what is there? This was darkness seeping in at my seams. Darkness.

I’m staying in bed, I thought, and I did. And I actually fell asleep. I woke up at 7:56 and lay there until Jeremy came to get me for our morning family scripture reading and prayer. When it was over I paced my family room once while my kids logged in to their devices for school and then I walked right back up to my bed. Part of me was saying, no, you should not get back in the bed. You should get going. You planned a workout to do this morning, you should do it. But I got back in bed. 

I lay there thinking and trying to sleep for an hour. I was arguing with myself about what to do today. And I was thinking about what the way I felt this morning MEANS. Like, does the way I feel this morning MEAN something about me, my upcoming day, the winter to come? I told my brain to stop analyzing the day yesterday because nothing about it could be changed. 

As I lay there under my quilt with the curtains shut, the clouds would shift occasionally to reveal the blazing morning sun and it would burn through the window and curtain and into my closed eyes momentarily. Then soon enough the clouds would shift again. I thought that I might let that sun reach me. I thought that it might be a reason to get going. 

And I still hadn’t decided the day. I was torn: would I give up on expecting things from myself today because everything felt too hard or would I force myself to get out of bed and do my workout and go grocery shopping and do all the mom things I do?

Then, just as the sun burned through my window again, I had a question come into my mind. What would showing myself love and compassion look like right now? My first thought was that compassion would be giving myself a break, letting myself stay in bed if that’s what I needed. Yeah. That would be compassion, right? Then I thought, wouldn’t be it compassionate if I gave myself the care that I know I need? If I know that getting exercise is a key to my mental health and emotional well-being, if I know that I feel good after I exercise, wouldn’t it be compassionate to offer myself that care? I knew this was true for me today. Not that it would never be compassionate to stay in bed. But what could I do for myself today that would be better than giving myself a sense of success, accomplishment, and strength? 

I got up. I got dressed. I got my water and I turned on music. I did my workout. Not because I’m hard core or because I’m super motivated. No. Just because I believe in compassion and I wanted to show some to myself on what felt like a hard day.