Making my bed was something that, once upon a time, I didn’t care for much. I have always held a standard in my home. Everything had a place and I could sniff out when something wasn’t in place. Adjusting picture frames or realigning chairs around the dining table was something I was labelled as fanatical about. But when it came to making my bed…. nope… I don’t have time for that. “I’m going to get back into it anyway!”
Then I had kids and I couldn’t escape it. When the kids were babies I knew one day I’d have to ask them to make their beds and that required integrity. I couldn’t ask them to do something that I don’t already live myself. So I started making the bed. I said to myself “just do it for 7 days straight and see how it goes”.
What I came to realise was that making a bed is not so much about how it looks or having a tidy bedroom. Of course, these things are important. But it’s about the quality in which the bed is made. Do we throw the covers up, flicking up one corner and hoping for the best that the other corner lands where it needs to? Do we throw the décor cushions on in a manner of ‘that’ll do’? Or do we make the bed with a quality, knowing that you are not just making the bed but preparing the bed for your return at the completion of your day….? Such an honouring gesture to yourself.
So then I started playing with it…. Some days I purposely didn’t make the bed and that night it felt horrible, uncomfortable even. I got to a point where I couldn’t stand it – or lay in it I should say! It offered me an opportunity to go to a greater depth of nurturing and self-care. Self-care isn’t limited to what we do for ourselves but how in which we do it. By making the bed of a morning with a focus on the quality, I was able to feel that same quality that night, allowing my body to surrender much more deeply for a rejuvenating night of sleep….. self-care.
The act of making a bed is not for the recognition of a beautiful ‘made-up’ room. But rather a quality imprinted at the beginning of the day that marks your appreciation and honouring of yourself. It’s the simple, intricate details of your movements throughout your day that contribute to a greater whole, the fullness of you.
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