Routines

After traveling for five months,

sleeping in different beds,

meeting all different people,

and discovering new parts of my Self,

I have had very little stability.

The only stability I have had

is my body, mind, and Self.

And while that has been a great bond

to grow and strengthen,

once the Camino ended

and I was alone again

I noticed that I was still sometimes getting lost from that connection.

That without certain things to keep me grounded

in my Self, body, and mind,

I would drift away

with worries and control.

During my travels over the past five months,

the days when I was most connected to my Self

were the days when I felt safe in what I was doing.

When I felt a sense of stability.

Whether that was having my baking job at the ranch in Argentina,

or waking up at 6 am to walk every day for seven hours surrounded by other pilgrims.

In both of them, I had a job,

a routine,

a ritual,

that I chose for myself.

That routine kept me grounded to myself

amongst everything else that was changing:

my bed, community, city, body, meals, etc.

I used to look down on routines,

thinking that they were ways that I tried to control outcomes out of fear.

And they can be hurtful to us

if we don’t forgive ourselves when we miss our desired routine

or if we use them to escape the chaos of the world

rather than embrace it.

But routines provide us the stability we need

to stay connected to “us”

amidst all that chaos.

They give us a sense of time and pattern

to remind us that no matter what life gives to us,

we still will be loved, safe, and prioritized.

Routines aren’t ways to control our lives,

they are ways to protect them.

To respect them.