We hope to explain a little bit more about Elements of Resilience and how we use the framework in our lives. We will show some practical examples and hope you’ll gain a bit more knowledge about resilience. Today in Elements of Resilience in our lives: Rhythm!
Rhythm
Currently, rhythm for us has a lot to do with rituals and planning. We are both working 4 days a week at a company, which means we need to be somewhere at and for a certain time. For us, a set rhythm in the mornings and evenings can help us get through the week without feeling totally exhausted. We use a monthly planning on our whiteboard so we can see what we’re up to and organize our weekends ahead. Mondays are our days off. On those days we usually get ready for the week by organizing ourselves by working on the following things:
- cleaning the house
- visiting opshops
- fixing things that need fixing
- working on Elements of Resilience together
- planning the week ahead (what are we doing, who is cooking what, do we need to get groceries, do we need to harvest vegetables)
- cooking and baking (Xander will make his Sourdough Bread!)
- manifesting and drawing an oracle card for the week ahead
- washing
It’s important to know that we don’t always do all of these things. It depends on what’s necessary, what has priority and what we feel up to, as well as the weather. If we can, we will always try to have at least one (or half a) free day without anything planned, to rest and do nothing (which means sleeping in, watching a movie, reading, playing games etc.). We both feel we really need that to recharge for the week ahead. Then, during the working week, we try to adhere to morning and evening rituals:
Morning rhythm (the same every working day)
- wake up at a set time (usually between 6.15-6.45 am)
- have a cup of tea and a proper, healthy breakfast – and sit down to eat/drink it
- getting ready for the day, getting dressed
- making lunch
- bike to work
Evening rhythm (very dependent on the day)
- meetings, courses, groceries or exercise straight after work
- biking home
- cooking (just one of us)
- doing the dishes (generally we do that together – I wash, Xander dries, that’s just personal preference)
- chill out – reading a book, drawing or something creative, playing a game, watching series or studying
- shower
- off to bed nice and early (about 9.30 pm), maybe read a book in bed for a bit
So that’s all very practical. Right now, this rhythm works well for us. It also helps you stick to habits if that can be hard for you – if you exercise every Tuesday then it’s a commitment to yourself (and your gym buddies!) to go. When our lives change, these rhythms and habits might change as well. And it might even change between Winter & Summer, as in Summer we’ll have more hours of sunlight. This might mean we have more energy to do stuff after work, as opposed to Winters in which we might want to rest more and go to bed relatively early.
I think, eventually, we’d love to be able to incorporate the natural rhythm of seasons, the sun and the moon into our lives even more. We do find this quite hard while we’re both working set times, but during the weekends we tend to spend a bit more time to feel what we need. If, for example, Sunday is a rainy day, we tend to spend it inside working on projects, reading, studying, cooking and baking. But if it turns out to be nice and warm we’ll go outside for a run, bike, walk or hang out the washing. I guess that’s something we all do naturally, and it would be interesting to observe how much you already live with the natural rhythms. How do you incorporate the weather/seasons into your days? Do you take them into account at all? And which rhythms, patterns or rituals do you have in your daily life? Let us know in the comments and thank you for reading Elements of Resilience in our lives: Rhythm!