Feet First ​Mini Challenge

​Going "Feet First" into your day is one of the simplest things you can do to start your day with a tiny win!
Start your day with a moment of intention, and its residue will linger on.

Here's the process: 

   1) Sit up in bed and take a DEEEEEEEP breath
You can breathe any way you like but if you'd like a suggestion, do a 4-7-8 breath:

• Breathe in for 4 counts
• Hold it for 7 counts
• Exhale slowly for 8 counts

You can do this once, or a few times. Let it feel good to you.

   2) When you're ready to get out of bed:

• Put both of your feet on the floor at the same time
• Turn them to parallel= the outside edges are parallel to each other
  • Use a book, magazine, pillow, or other straight edge lined up 90 degrees to your bed to find your alignment easily
• Stand up evenly on both feet at the same time
  • No hands for bonus points!

3) Notice:

• The balance between your feet
• The effort of using both feet equally instead of some other part of your body
• The feeling of standing for a moment in true parallel

How's the balance in your body and the rest of your life throughout your day?

Uh oh, did you miss it this morning?

No problem! There's no law that says you can only pay attention to standing up the first time you do it each day. 

Each time you're sitting down, especially if you have your feet up (on a chair leg, foot stool, or the couch, for example) just:

1. Sit square and tall with your feet in parallel
2. Take your deep breath
3. Stand up evenly (I can almost guarantee that'll be harder than you expect!)
4. Do your Noticing (step 3 above)

​Listen to my guided description of Feet First for step-by-step details:

​What Others Have Said About Feet First

• As a fellow movement practitioner, I appreciated a simple practice that I could sneak into the start of my day
  
  
• ​Since my bed is high, I wasn't able to put my feet immediately on the floor.  And my bedroom floor has carpeting.  I found that when I was brushing my teeth, I could line up my feet with the sides of the floor tile.  And that felt good!  and weird... and good again!
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• First of all I appreciate how early you sent the email reminder because I have the bad habit of checking emails before I get out of bed, but it benefited me in this case, I was like “oh yeah!”. There were some days that I didn’t even think about it and I was like “dang it I missed it!” because I didn’t check my email. 
  
  One of the things I noticed that started to happen is that throughout the day I catch myself not breathing well or I’m feeling anxious and I intentionally try to work with my breathing- or I just take a deep breath, like Jeeze just breathe, right? And I would find myself checking my feet! So it made that mental connection and I thought of you. It was interesting how quickly that happened, after the first day or two that those associations started to happen for me
  
  

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