Hand wraps (AKA Morning Meditation)

Without even thinking about it, I often develop rituals around simple tasks I do all the time.

Lately one of the first things I do in the morning (after getting off the scale… which is an insane ritual I have to break) is to roll my hand-wraps back up. I always leave them out to air overnight and just re-roll them in the morning. It’s such a simple thing to roll up 2, 170" lengths of fabric, but at the same time, because it is so simple, it becomes very relaxing and meditative. It’s not like you can really do anything else when you roll them without having them unrolling on you or you rolling them up with creases and folds. You "kind of" have to pay attention. Not intently or not with a lot of focus, but you have to be aware of what you are doing.

As weird as it sounds, it’s become a ritual I actually look forward to each day. It’s 5-10 minutes in the morning that I stand in the back window and simply watch my hands work, rolling up these lengths of fabric, glancing ever so often at the sunrise, feeling the sun on my face. It’s almost like my own strange zen sand garden. (Without all the mess my cat would make of it)

It’s kind of like coloring. Yeah, you read that right, (here’s where the stay-at-home dad really comes out), coloring is unbelievably relaxing and mind cleansing. I’m sure most of you haven’t done it since you where 6 or 7 years old, but when your biggest decision is what color the rocket ship or the fish’s hat should be and your biggest worry is going out of the lines… life is pretty good. It’s hard to think about your bank statement and do a good coloring job.

I don’t know if I’m suggesting you take up boxing, or buying a coloring book. Kind of opposite ends of the spectrum eh? I guess I’m suggesting we all should have something, as simple as it may be, that slows the world down for a few minutes once in a while. Things are such a hectic pace these days and our minds race with worry, sometimes you have to shut everything down and slow down. So find some little simple thing that YOU can use, and get your sanity back….

I’m trying hard to get mine back.