wake up shake up

One of the best pieces of easily implementable advice my therapist has given me is to embrace the morning with music

I used to check email and social media before getting out of bed. No more. I don’t usually look at email until my workday has begun, and I’m only on social media once in a blue moon these days. I do sometimes check the weather before getting up; sometimes I give my calendar a once-over so I know what to wear that day; and I often play Wordle or Sudoku on my phone first thing in the morning. But nothing stressful.

And then, when it’s time for me to get out of bed and get moving, I move

…to the loud music I blast from my phone
and I dance and jump and act like a maniac in front of my mirror (somehow that the mirror makes it seem more normal than just dancing without being able to see myself, but as I write this down, I’m realizing it makes no sense, so we will just go with it)

I imagine being in an exercise class
I think about my body and my muscles
I sing along to whatever music is playing

And I move into my morning routine of cleaning up and readying for the day
Not stopping the music until I head to the car

and sometimes not even then

bedroom with a dance floor