Ahhhhh, early mornings. How I have missed you!

Having spent the last week or more struggling through a flu-head-cold-thing I was delighted to naturally wake up at my normal 5 am 'get up' time. No alarm clock this morning, I guess I was just ready to resume life as normal; waking before the sun and greeting the day as it rolled into my part of the world.

If you've been following along you'll know I've been studying the work of Irene Lyon Nervous System and Trauma Resolution Specialist. One of the key things she teaches is how important it is to practise exploratory orienting as often as possible. I'll explain what this is in a minute but the reason it's so important is that it helps build capacity in the nervous system. And a strong and capable nervous system is what is required to heal/process/integrate/resolve old trauma.

What's trauma? Well, I love the way Kathy Kain (one of Irene's mentors) explains it as any bad, scary thing that happened to us that we survived but still bothers us in some small or large way (i.e. we're still carrying it in our body).

Anyway, now you know why exploratory orienting is awesome, here's how simple it is to do:

Walk out your door (if you're somewhere safe) and look at something beautiful. And just take it all in: the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feel of the wind or air temperature on your skin.

Knowing how good this exploratory orienting is for my nervous system is what inspired me to head outside into the freezing cold this morning at 5:30 am: I saw this view and I wanted to capture it, stare at it, take it all in and share it with you.

I wish you could have stood next to me, as Brad did, and saw the range of light-lit colours that spread across the sky. The light yellow that shifted into light pink and then purple and blue, with multiple shades of each. Seemingly painted over the top were dark grey clouds and white ones. And I spotted a bright star in the background.

As I lingered for a moment longer in the cold birds flew overhead. Small birds, dark shadows in the early morning light. Larger birds that I could make out as Magpies, flying to their own unique rhythm. And then Rainbow Lorikeets that zipped over my head in a tearing hurry, recognisable not by their colours (they were still black to my eyes in that early morning light) but rather by their bird call which is so familiar to me given they grace our garden every single, precious day.

All photos my own. Taken on my humble Google Pixel 2XL.