Living with small children means your mornings are not your own. They are shared experiences that involve making breakfast and coaxing them through their regular morning routines. Breakfast, toothbrushing, getting dressed. My children have a set daily routine. I don’t. And I’m the one who wants one.

I’ve often been encouraged to get up early, before anyone else is up, like before the sun rises in the summer so that I could get some quiet time alone. I was always afraid that getting up early meant that I’d wake up the mini-me who also happens to be a pretty early riser. The few times I’ve gotten up super early to write, it has been a disaster. Writer’s block, early rising children, rising frustration that I should’ve just slept in. School starts early here, so I’m already up at 6:30 each day. But the most significant excuse I have for not establishing this routine is more obvious than all of the above, but is revealed in it all: I feel like this time isn’t mine and taking back my time is another opportunity for disappointment.

Then I found it.

Yesterday, as I was catching up on my podcasts, I listened to one that kickstarted my thinking again. On The Accidental Creative, Todd Henry shared his approach to the morning ritual, which includes reading, meditation, and free-writing. He also encourages getting up the same time every day, which is tough on me, given my practice of getting up way too early on Sundays. Nevertheless, I settled on 6:00. I erased all of the different alarms in my phone, leaving one repeating every day. And I embarked on my same-time-every-day ritual.

Waking up at 6 was pretty easy this morning and I wasn’t tempted to snooze. But I also wasn’t filled with ambition. I set about my 20 minutes of serious reading. I chose Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly, which I have been enjoying. Brown, an academic in the field of social work has specialized in the area of intimacy and vulnerability. Daring Greatly is her manifesto, daring the reader to live a life with less fear of shame and more willingness to be vulnerable.

The reading itself, the question of shame and relationship to who we are, was profoundly relevant to what I was dealing with; what I was focusing on with my own pursuit of a morning ritual. It hit me hard that what I was ignoring my place, discounting my time, believing that I couldn’t claim my own sense of ritual.

What I needed to give up was my anger that I didn’t get to wake up on my own terms when I chose to, obsessing that I just had to have a morning each week to sleep in because I never get to. But instead, recognizing the control I have over the ritual and the routine, that I am able to get up when I want to, if I set that goal for myself. My children don’t dictate my morning, nor do they want to. [Except the youngest, who wants me to stay home and play Mario with him.]

My mindset was all wrong.

I blew through my inspirational reading and meditation time, jumping straight at writing. This is where I got distracted and tinkered with my other website. But I felt like I was establishing something, making sense of something.

On the way in this morning, I listened to another podcast, one playing a special show from New Tech City about boredom. It was the launch of an initiative for February (better late than never, I suppose) called Bored and Brilliant. It is definitely worth checking out. Just like Brene Brown and Todd Henry, hearing Manoush Zomorodi of New Tech City speak about the importance of letting your mind wander, brought them together into some incredible trinity of ritual formation. Waking, Reading, Boredom, Writing. It makes a certain sense, doesn’t it?

I feel like my ritual needs to evolve. It needs to change, not only with my needs or growth, but with the season, with inspiration, with what is really happening in my life. Ritual is to bring both order and freedom to a life of chaos and fear. It is to set us up for a good day. A day of breakthrough and creativity. A day of fascination and inspiration. A day of hope and love and thanksgiving. My kind of day.