Reset and reflect in the new season

Is September the new January? Recommendations for your daily routine

Well we’re at the end of a super busy summer, and I am praying that the weather keeps nice until at least October given how much rain we had. Summer, at least in the UK, has not felt long enough. Verse has been picking up speed over the last few months, and after finishing our accelerator and hosting our first community event, I’m delighted to share that Tom and I have successfully won a place on a bootcamp where we’ll get the opportunity to workshop and refine the business further ahead of launching. We are now heads down prepping for this next week… we’ll keep you posted on how we get on!

September always feels like a much better, more exciting time to reset and make resolutions than January 1st. Yes, we’re inundated with back to school and ‘new season’ marketing, but give me pencils and stationery over hangovers and bleak gym days. The golden glow of autumn feels much more appropriate to welcome in change, and you feel far more optimistic that it might just stick.

I love a plan (any excuse for a new notebook) and alongside preparing for the bootcamp, I am upping the game on my daily routine. Here are the changes I’m making to welcome the autumn equinox and bring balance to the business, and the books I’m picking up to help me on the way.

Meditation

One of the biggest things I’m resetting on is meditation. Earlier in the year I did a Vipassana course (yes, 10 days of silent meditation) and loved the experience. Over the course of a busy summer my commitment to it has totally slipped, so I am restarting this daily habit. To support with this, I’ll be turning to:

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. I was gifted this by a friend and it’s such a treasured book. It’s quite long, and I like to dip in and out of it fairly frequently. It follows Yogananda’s life from an early age, searching for his guru and introducing Kriya Yoga. It is credited with introducing a lot of the ancient yogic thinking to the West.

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I re-read this every year and (with a different coloured pen) make notes on what stands out to me. It’s so interesting to see what changes and resonates year to year and I love Tolle’s writing. I think spiritual books and messages depend on whether you connect to how the author communicates, and I find Tolle very clear and matter of fact. I love this book so much I included it in my top 10 books of the 21st century.

Writing

I try to read and write daily and I’ve gone through many versions of this daily routine, stopping and starting, changing the process and even attempting to do it more digitally (note: this is the antithesis of what this practice is trying to help with).

I’m back into this daily habit of longhand writing and because I love a course I’m redoing the 6 week programme in Living the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This is all about writing for guidance, a technique Cameron teaches to help quell doubts and fears and thus encouraging a lighter, happier life. For me, I find the act of writing a few pages of ‘stream of consciousness’ gets everything out that has been whizzing round my head, and sets me up for a successful day of deeper work, instead of rapid task switching and inefficiency.

If you haven’t tried the original book, The Artist’s Way, you could start now and finish by December, and I promise you will have so many interesting experiences to share with loved ones at the Christmas table. In a world where courses seem to be hugely expensive, this one will cost you the price of a book, a 12 week commitment and a bit of fun.

Mindset & positive thinking

I find it all too easy to fall into a more critical mindset when rushing around and super busy. Simply pausing to remember that the long list of stuff is something I ‘get' to do, rather than ‘have’ to do, helps bring the passion back into the day to day. After all, it’s the process that’s more fun than the outcome. It’s a shame this is such a hard won and easily forgettable lesson.

To help me remember this, I have started to turn to Pema Chödrön. I already started Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, and then mislaid and never finished it. I can’t wait to get back to it. This is the second book of Chödrön’s I’m reading, the first I picked up was When Things Fall Apart which is a beautifully succinct book of wisdom and guidance.

Two further reads I’d recommend, which are excellent: The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer and Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. These were included in one of our first ever lists.

Morning walk

It’s quite hard to read and walk (I have tried, normally in an airport queue). Instead, here’s a couple of playlists that I have on pretty much all the time.

528hz is supposed to be the frequency for stress reduction, whilst also improving mental clarity and sleep quality. Either way, it’s great, ambient music to work to or have on as you’re going about your evening routine.

Snatam Kaur I was introduced to through Oprah Winfrey’s What I Know For Sure. (This is such a lovely book, I highly recommend it as a top ‘giftable’ book or just a general mood booster). Snatam Kaur is my default soundtrack for life, and she is even more amazing live.

Here’s the list:

• Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

• Living the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

• Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön

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Happy reading x

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