If you have been following this blog, you know that, for the past few years, I have felt myself slowly shifting. In an attempt to honor this shift, while not fully understanding it, I’ve made tiny micro-changes to my daily rituals, changes that feel right, while not feeling overwhelming.

It started with meditation. I have been on-again, off-again meditating for over a decade. I got interested in it when, on a whim, I signed up for a 21-day meditation challenge with The Chopra Center over a decade ago. The Dean of Meditation, at the time, was a man named davidji. His voice and manner were so inviting that I was hooked. (Note: he has since parted ways with the Center and started his own gig- link on his name).

And then, without the accountability of a daily email as a prod, I strayed from a daily practice. I found and lost it again over the years (a future blog post?) and then decided, with this “shifting” that this could be a manageable daily practice, as long as I didn’t come out of the gate with an intention of meditating for an hour a day. So, I set a goal of ten minutes a day, as soon as I wake up (and had let the dog out).

That’s it.

Because what, really, is ten minutes a day? It is nothing in the grand scheme of things. But would ten minutes be effective? Would I feel any benefit?

You bet.

Ten minutes of meditation at the beginning of the day, EVERY DAY (with a few- 4 – exceptions) in six months, has completely shaped how I face the day. How I face every day. It’s an opportunity to say, “This is a new day. Yesterday is done, tomorrow hasn’t yet come. Today is what’s in front of me. How will I face this day?”

And, do you know something?

Ten minutes of meditation, every day, first thing in the morning has, quite organically, and without force, turned into more than one ten-minute meditation a day, on some days. Some days, it’s an additional 15, 30 or even an hour. And not sitting cross-legged on a mat (I would consider it a miracle to be able to get into that position any more). And not always sitting. Sometimes walking, sometimes, lying down. It’s creeped into multiple places in my day.

And I feel calmer. I feel more focused. I feel less wound up.

And then, I thought, one manageable ritual deserved another. How about yoga?

YOGA?!!!!

Now, if you know me, you know I have very, very bad arthritis in my knee. So bad, sometimes, that I need injections. So bad, sometimes, that my body started to freeze and become rigid.

So, yeah, yoga,

But, again, I’m not getting down on the floor and bending into a pretzel. But, I had heard about chair yoga, and of course, thought it was for very very old and sick people. But, I did my research, tried out a bunch of yogis on YouTube, and came to find a woman by the name of Sarah Starr, who had lots of little 10-15 minute chair yoga videos.

I can do 10 minutes, right? In fact, let’s make that the next ritual. After meditation (and feeding the dog), but before the first cup of tea in the morning. Just 10 minutes.

So, I started. And 10 minutes became 15, and then 20, and, as of this writing, 30 minutes. A day.

EVERY DAY.

That’s right.

Here’s the truth. I didn’t intend to do it every day. At most, every other day. But, what I found was, when I skip chair yoga in the morning, by midday I become stiff and distracted. If I do it every morning, whether I want to or not, I never regret it. I’m less sleepy mid-afternoon.

So, two new rituals. Should be enough, right?

Nope.

The next challenge to myself was: well, yoga and meditation are fine, but I sit for eight hours a day in a chair. At best, I can get 2,000 steps in per day. What if I try to increase that a little, to say, 200 steps? So, again, I did my research, and found an app that works with my Apple watch, which encourages you to meet a certain step goal by the end of the day. If you don’t make the goal, it keeps the same goal for the next day. But, if you do meet that goal, it adds a few hundred steps to the next day.

OK. I’ll bite. Not a lot of places to walk near me, but I can pace around my office, which sits in 600 sq feet of space.

So, I start: 2,000 steps by the end of the day:

First day, I beat the goal by 352 steps.
The next day over by 200.
200 more the next day. (Now I want to get to 1/2 of the goal by noon.)
170 extra the next.
1000 over the next. (surely I can get to the whole step goal by 3pm)

This morning, I wanted to get a jump start on my steps. So, donning my face mask and earbuds. I decided to walk to the end of my street and back. I had no idea what the distance would be, but it couldn’t be too bad.

2,118 steps in 15 minutes. Just under a mile.

And the weird thing is: the more I move, the more I want to get up from my desk chair and move. Me! The piece of veal that could barely move 2,000 steps a day.

Is 5,000 steps/day a lot? Not by a long shot. But, increasing in increments of 200-300 steps a day, in a month I could be at 10,000 steps/day. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that is the recommended steps from some propaganda machine. That’s 5 miles/day.

I’m not racing. I’m not even walking determinedly. I’m walking in such a way so my knee doesn’t complain. And that’s enough for me.

Meditation, yoga, walking. Three rituals I actually enjoy. And hopefully will continue.

And, I predict, more rituals will be added to my day. The important bit is these were manageable – both in terms of time commitment, and in terms of level of difficulty. I’ve heard so many people say you need to push your body. Maybe they do. I find I need to nuzzle and cajole my body. I need to lull it into a sense of seemingly imperceptible shifts that, over time, amount to quite significant changes and, more importantly, benefits to my mind and body.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still fat. I still eat like crap. For now.

Maybe future shifts will address those parts of my ritual. I feel it coming. But, until I figure out how to do it manageably, it’s not a challenge for today.