(Un) healthy Habits

This morning was the first I'd woken up without the freedom to surf. I am far away from my beachside home in the country. I am hundreds kilometres from the ocean and without a computer or Internet access. In case you didn't know, I don't surf at the beach, I surf on the couch. It is the Internet surfing I missed this morning, the comfort of knowing that the world (wide web) is right there at my fingertips. They say that the first step to healing from an addiction is to admit that you have one first. I will do no such thing as to admit I am addicted to the Internet, I just find it difficult to go without it for long (a few hours).

This morning as I dealt with the cold harsh reality that I was without computer or iphone access all sorts of feelings and thoughts crept in. 'In this modern day how is it that there is not one single computer available to me?' my mind questioned. 'If I had brought my laptop I would never have landed myself in this situation' I thought feeling annoyed. This was followed by an uncomfortable sense of emptyness and slight agitation. I wished I could fill the void with Twitter, checking e-mails and blogging. I wanted to be able to distract myself from the feelings. Then a horrifying thought emerged 'I might have to sit with this feeling of emptyness because I don't have anything to fix it'. I also realised that my number one tool for avoidance of writing my morning pages had been stripped from me.

I recently wrote about morning pages and my intention to begin a creative exploration process with the book 'The Artist's Way'. I am officially on day 3 of the 12 week course. One of the main components involves the practice of writing 3 pages of uncensored stream of consciousness writing every single morning upon waking.  Not once yet have I undertaken this task in the AM hours.

Today, with nothing available to distract me, other than Mel and Kochie (let's be honest, that ain't any kind of excuse) I turned to my empty page and began to write. Once I had begun it felt good and I felt mighty proud of myself for acheiving the seemingly unnatainable- morning pages being written in the morning. Upon finishing the pages I felt a little bit inspired to consider my Artist's Date, which is the second regular task that is to be undertaken each week as a part of the course. This date is to be a date with your 'inner child' the playful part of you that enjoys new adventures, creative pursuits and just having fun. I came to realise that this date would need to happen while I'm here in the country, in a very small town. I wondered what on earth I could do, a few ideas began to flow about going fossicking through the op shops and antique store in town (I think there is still an antiques store). I'm not yet sure if this will be my date, I am wondering how I will fill 2 whole hours with the pursuit.

So I had completed the morning pages and still had no Internet at 10am, I decided to flick through some of my Mum's Country Style type magazines and cut out some clippings of the kind of elements I would like to have make up my own home one day. I found it really inspiring and alot of fun, I still feel the excitement bubbling up now when I think about my future balinese style landscaped garden.



My future garden

I quickly came to realise that thanks to my Mum's computer blowing up and her taking the laptop to work for a presentation I had been gifted with the opportunity to experience my morning differently. To take time out to nurture my creative self and think outisde the square (latpop). Doing things differently in the morning is something I've been thinking about for a while, but I was stuck, completely stuck in the rut of beginning my day online and unable to break the habit. I've been so aware of this for such a long time now, but the awareness itself of the habit had not broken it. Today I got a glimpse of what is underlying the habit, how this routine has served to help me avoid 'being with' my self in the morning and enjoying creative time. Tomorrow the Internet will be available to me in the morning, let's see what happens.