Posts by: Helen Marshall

Pausing Your Morning Steps

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Footsteps Conversations
Footsteps Conversations
Pausing Your Morning Steps
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Mornings- I have read quite a bit about them and this time of the day appears to have many benefits. Personally, my relationship with mornings is still in development. I associate myself with being an evening owl (having spent years working evenings when I was younger as a nurse on the twilight shift). Therefore, historically I don’t consider myself a morning lark.  Yet, I cannot deny that there is something quite magical about the hours between 06.00 and 09.00 when I decide to savour them.

For me, leading a busy self-employed life as well as being a new grandmother, mornings are without doubt my favourite part of the day. Now, it is 06.15 and I feel quiet and relaxed and there is silence away from all the ‘noise’ of a typical day.

Some of you may have heard of a book called ‘The Miracle Morning’ by Hal Elrod. Its central message is that a morning routine, which involves rising early is a key factor in personal success and happiness. Certainly, there is no denying that from all the successful people I have read or personally have known in some way, they are all ‘morning’ people. The research into the most successful people’s habits confirms this.

Having a morning routine, which involves structure, discipline and getting ahead in your day undeniably has advantages. I have known past mornings of chaos, lethargy and not wanting to get out of bed, and there is nothing worse than to start a day like this. However, I never really subscribed to the ‘Miracle Morning’ book for one key reason that being I didn’t like the rigidity and the pressure it conveyed to me. The rising at 5 am with the exercise, scripting, reading and so forth felt too overwhelming. Some of the reviews I read from people (feeling stressed and under pressure if they could not manage it) were negative for me.

So, I have chosen a middle ground. I set no alarm clock unless I need to get up of course for something specific. I allow my body to wake up when it is ready. Often, it is early, and the times vary. I have one or two dedicated practices, including drinking water as soon as I wake because our bodies are dehydrated after a night’s sleep. I also listen to my Darren Daily Mentorship audio newsletter on weekdays. Often, I spend several minutes in silence, just listening and doing nothing at all. Sometimes I start work before I go downstairs. I may write, read, or just listen to the radio on BBC Sounds. I have even got up and done a brief walking circuit around my estate.

Yes, I agree this is a luxury and I am fortunate to get to choose how and when I work and how I live. For most of my life, it wasn’t like this, and I too had to get up for shifts, children and the time pressures life give us. I think if I could turn the clock back though, I would have done my mornings differently. I would have allowed them to be times to pause, even for 10 minutes. To give myself the space for a bit of self-care, however, brief that window of time might have been. I didn’t and I regret that but I’m making up for that now.

So, I would encourage you to evaluate your mornings. Is it working? If it is then great but if it isn’t, experiment with it and try out something different. You might be surprised. Be flexible, allow yourself to rest and stop because often that’s when the best ideas and insights of something will show up.  Get up a bit earlier to get ahead, even by a few minutes, if you need to get something important done (and you will feel great for doing that) but don’t beat yourself up if it didn’t happen as intended. Try a different approach next time and see how it feels. I still juggle with what works for for me, but the word Pause within this time is non-negotiable.

A Spring in My Step

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A Spring in my Step

“Behold, I saw Spring in all its new seasonal beauty by the contrast of the blue sky, laced with the white-friendly cloud of the cumulus. The blue flowers joined in with the heavenly colour, welcoming with equal vibrant gladness the glory of this Easter Monday. 

This first day of April saw me striding out of Winter’s tunnel. How long it had been. I had tried to smile through it but sometimes the winter walls of thickness bored down on me, however much I rose to push it away. I was never good with Winter, and even though I manage it better now, nothing lifts my step with a spring more than spring itself.”

Extract from Helen’s nature notes ( 1/04/2024)

Reading about the countryside, walking in it, observing, and then writing about it in my nature journals has transformed my ability to manage my winter feelings and my attitude to this season. The increasingly typical English winter, dull, dark, cold and dismal, and this year of an exceptionally wet February and March bears testimony to this description.

I wish to make known here my past dread of winter and why. How it reminded me of grey feelings, fog and depression. This was just more than Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). The increased appreciation of nature and the effect it had of lifting my mood, along with walking (known to improve your mental health) had a positive compound effect. The more I savoured each month and looked at what it had to offer, the more I could feel joy. This led to a gradual shift towards appreciation of every climate, rather than the dread of the clocks going back each year in October.

When we were in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to walk every day within our restrictions of movement. I started to photograph what I saw on my housing estate, a bud, a tree, a clump of colour. One evening I photographed how many cats I saw. I posted them on my FB page, and I was so surprised at how many people enjoyed seeing my 30-minute walk-in pictures. When I stopped, I found out later how much people missed these posts.

Now Spring has arrived. Nothing pleases me more than to step outside and to still find hidden delights of nature on what is the outskirts of both a town and a housing estate. My walks start on what used to be a World War Two airfield- a runway strip of dust and uneven concrete, nothing romantic about this ramble. The newly built mound of earth to my right houses a water supply. An artificial spot of green, like a giant carbuncle that shouldn’t be there.

 Further along, trees had been cut away for the MacDonalds just on the roundabout. I walk past to my left, next to scaffolds and barriers. A new housing estate where a field was. I look back to my right and hear the Chiff Chaff by the farmer’s field still left which can be seen out of my third-floor bedroom window. You can find beauty even with bricks around you in an urban area if you look hard enough.

 Nature will not be silent or defeated and it still feels victorious to me. I photograph the flowers still growing on this circular route that I walk so often. I eagerly looked out for the Snowdrops in February and there they were.

 All my walks represent expression and freedom. These two words are what I value most, the expression to be who I want to be and the freedom to execute this in action.

Yes, I still prefer spring over Winter, but I now have a tool kit of mental health support I give to myself when late November/December greets me, and I shall write about this more in the autumn.

For now, we have longer nights and warming days. I am grateful to be here, to be alive, to see and hear the Chiff-Chaff by the wide-open fields still left and breathe in a new day.

Originally published for Wednesday’s walk on 17th April. Republished today after accidental deletion.

I am still learning to navigate this site and whilst trying to prepare my next blog I hit the wrong button. The main message here is, it’s OK to make mistakes, we can correct and re-trace our steps. The important thing is to keep going.