Building a routine

"For those who have been trained by it, no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful." Bobby McFerrin

I was always comforted by that fairly often heard paradigm that anything that you managed to stick to for 21 days became an ingrained habit. That was until I read an article by Ben Gardner entitled "Busting the 21 days habit formation myth". Now 21 days is only three weeks (not even a month) and that definitely always felt doable so this is somewhat disheartening but it gets worse when Mr. Gardner comes up with his figure of 66 days. Now we're talking about two months and who can do that?

Sigh. Pause for breath.

Surprisingly I think that when it comes to meditation, 66 days might be very doable now that I've found a routine that seems not only doable but desirable. Thanks to my friend Alison, I have two excellent bolsters that fit nicely on my sofa. If I follow the normal routine, I'm up at 5:30am to feed and quiet the cats, back to bed to listen to the news in a prone position until 6:30a, and then up, turn on the coffee maker and do my meditation while all that is going on. The coffee takes care of itself, one of the cats will join me on the sofa and I do a 15-20 minute routine that leaves my mind fairly clear and with the right energy to do some light cleaning, prepare breakfast, get dressed and leave the house purposefully.

A side benefit is that I find myself doing an additional meditation as I make my way to work: walking, riding on MUNI, whatever. It's certainly not out of a need to fulfill a commitment or to (hah!) impress somebody, it's just another little joy and positive addition to my morning. Back to the 66 day thing...

Maybe it's not important to keep a count right now. Maybe it's more important to just accept the fact that doing this (meditation) makes my day better. Sort of like understanding that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. There'll be challenging times ahead when I'm on the road and away from the things that ground me and normal habits would indicate that I'll stray away from the normal day to day things that help keep me sane. But why should that be the case with meditation?