The Importance of Daily Rhythms

“Daily rhythms cut off the tyranny of the urgent.”

I first heard these words on a podcast about life’s stages and seasons. The speakers were describing the importance of living a life in constant pursuit of calling and meaning. They came to the conclusion that in order to live good lives that are not thrown around by ever-changing circumstances, we need order and stability in the areas of our lives we can control.

Since graduating in May, I’ve felt tossed around more than a few times. I know what it is to let circumstances dictate the kind of friend I’ll be and the kind of day I’ll have. Things that feel urgent constantly rise up and demand my attention, from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. For the past few months, nearly every day has looked different, and I hid behind my jobs to excuse myself from the hard work of discipline.

Because really, that’s what I was lacking. Discipline. Rhythms.

Discipline isn’t something I used to shy away from. I thrive on routines and lists and making plans. And the truth is, I knew what I needed to do, but what I needed to do seemed hard. And after letting life throw me around for a little while, I started to feel too tired to care.

But eventually, I remembered the truth: that though I can’t control everything, I can control a few things, little things. I began to take back my daily rhythms, the things I do when I wake up in the morning. I choose not to watch Netflix until I fall asleep, and read instead. I make healthy lunches and drink enough water throughout the day. I reach out to people who support me, instead of trying to do everything on my own. I’m learning and relearning how to live a stable life, even on uncertain days.

Urgency still threatens to be a tyrant in my life, and some days, it wins. Some days I am thrown around a little bit; I’ll probably always have a few bruises left over from my fights with circumstance. But the simplest of choices have started making the biggest differences in my days. They keep me grounded and sane on days when everything seems uncertain.

I spent a long time believing that by fighting change I could keep things the same, but all I did was rebel against processes of growth in my life. I’m learning now that these processes are hard and beautiful, that instead of fighting them I need to prepare for them. To look long and hard at my daily choices and rhythms, the things that earn my attention and energy. And to do what I can to create a life that cultivates growth instead of fighting it.

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Featured

Why did you move?

A cardstock print sits propped against the lamp on my desk: a taupe watercolor swipe outlining a peakside Saguaro, the sun a tiny ring above. Beneath this minimalist illustration are these words in typeface: “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

I happened upon this notecard-sized print on the way out of a shop last weekend, after already having completed another purchase. It was the last print of its kind in the pile. I had to have it. I returned to the cashier: “This one, too.”

You see, this verse has been a thread weaving through my story, simple words spoken by a prophet long dead, a passage of comfort I’ve returned to again and again since my pilgrimage to the desert four years ago, when I inked a cactus on my wrist.

The Good Old Days

Last week was National Margarita Day.

I did not, however, celebrate the holiday. Truthfully, I’ve yet to find THE Mexican place here in Phoenix. You know the one: gaudy decorations, cheap food, even cheaper margaritas.

But there’s a Mexican restaurant at the corner of Charlotte and Whitebridge in Nashville, TN.

You may have heard of it.

10 Life Lessons This Cross-Country Move is Attempting to Teach Me

There are a few lessons life has attempted to teach me since my move — all things that I haven’t yet spiced up into a full essay, but deserve to be memorialized by my metaphorical pen nonetheless.

So I present a collection of lessons I’ve learned — and am still learning — in the last 3 months.

When The Hardest Thing & The Right Thing Are the Same

“Nuh uh!” I had protested.

The best thing about being 15 years old is that you know absolutely everything there is to know about life.

I certainly did.

I was arguing with my friends over the line in a song from The Fray (#tbt to moody middle school days): “Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.”

Doing the right thing should never be hard, I confidently claimed. Anytime you have the choice to do the right thing, the healthy thing, the thing that builds up rather than tears down, it should never, ever be difficult to choose that.

Like I said, I knew everything.

Of course, 13 years later, I know that I don’t actually know much at all. And I also know that the hardest thing and the right thing are just about ALWAYS the same. It’s madness, really.

A Holy Yes to the Real Things: On Setting Social Media Boundaries

Two and a half hours.

That’s how long I had spent on my phone that day. Reading emails, sure. Responding to texts, some. Catching up on news, a bit. But mostly: scrolling through Instagram.

I had spent an hour of my day clicking through clips of someone else’s life. The sad truth? Some days, I’ve spent way more than just one hour lost to Instagram.

This is where the High School Musical cast flash mobs my brain with “we’re all in this together”—because my educated guess is that you can relate to this daily scroll-fest, too.

Who You Are Now: On Outgrowing Earlier Versions of Yourself

In the last few months, I’ve realized, much to my dismay, that I look older. That I am aging. This sounds dramatic coming from an able-bodied twenty-seven-year old, but it’s true. I didn’t know I found so much worth and security in the way that I looked until I started to notice a difference.

As humans, we note the passing of time in the changes around us. The tree that was once green is now orange, now yellow, now brown and bare. The crack on the stoop starts to grow weeds and crumble. The basil plant gets bigger, the dust on the shelf gets thicker, and the water stain on the ceiling expands to look like a dinosaur. We note these changes with surprise, as if they’ve happened all of a sudden instead of one day at a time.

On Navigating Grief During the Isolation of Quarantine

I read about the third suicide that had happened while we were in quarantine via email from my supervisor.

“I apologize for my absence. As some of you may have heard, my brother committed suicide over the weekend, and my family and I have been grieving this loss.”

I wrote back to the mass email individually saying how sorry I was for her loss, and that I, too, had suffered a loss at this time. Within the last month, I had lost my uncle to a surgery that left him paralyzed for weeks in the hospital. Alone. Without family. And that that had filled my heart with grief in a confusing time that didn’t allow people to gather and grieve the loss of a loved one. Let alone, let them say goodbye.

No Man Is An Island: An Ode to Our Neediness

The last few years of my life—so basically my Full Grown Adult Years—have been a reinforced lesson in this one simple yet slightly-jarring fact: we need each other. I mean, need-NEED each other.

“No man is an island,” says Thomas Merton, and my bae C.S. Lewis backs this up further by writing, “We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.”

We’re meant to be needy, but why is it so hard to acknowledge and accept this?

Say What You Need

Now maybe it wasn’t your family or your upbringing that made you neglect voicing your needs. Maybe it was a toxic relationship or a difficult work environment. Maybe it was someone who told you that your needs were selfish or that the desires of your heart didn’t matter.

Whatever it was, I urge you to identify those people or experiences or situations and start using that knowledge to change.

A Beginner's Guide to the Enneagram

Maybe you, like me, have become curious about the Enneagram because it is popping up everywhere in conversations and on your social media timeline. Maybe you know everything there is to know and have become quite fluent in Ennea-lingo (you even know that there are sub-types!).

Maybe this is the first time you’re ever hearing about this weird test and you’ve spent the last four paragraphs trying to figure out how to even pronounce the word “Enneagram” (In-ee-a-gram, for the record).

No matter where you’re at, we can all use some guidelines when it comes to personality tests, because none of us are immune to over-identifying, self-shaming, and becoming a walking personality-test-fulfilling prophesy. So, without further ado, here are my dos and don’ts of Enneagram-ing.

Life, HealthAlexa JenkinsAugust 20, 2017Featured1 Comment

The Importance of Daily Rhythms

“Daily rhythms cut off the tyranny of the urgent.”

Introducing Windrose Magazine

To the one who is in a transition period:

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