Break your routine weekend

Break your routine

Try these easy tips to start off your weekend - and the rest of your life - with a new outlook!

Sometimes you look at your life and realise you're stuck in a rut. You've been following the same routine day in, day out for a long while and are feeling jaded and bored. So it's time to jolt yourself into a whole new lifestyle. Obviously you can't change your entire life in a weekend, but you can make a good start. At the very least this weekend will start to challenge your perceptions and shift your consciousness into a brand new pattern.

What you'll need:

Food and drink - a selection that is completely different from usual
Essential oils: pine or lemon
Green candle
Pen and paper, crayons or paints
Walnut Bach flower remedy

Get ready to shake up your routine!

Friday evening: Fresh beginnings

Tonight you're going to be doing a fair amount of writing and thinking so choose a meal that is easy to prepare. Which of the following would you never normally eat: fish and chips; Indian or Chinese takeaway; a hummus sandwich; miso soup; tofu stir-fry? Choose one that you have never (or rarely) eaten before.

Thinking about routine

Light a green candle (to symbolise fresh beginnings) and maybe burn pine or lemon aromatherapy oil.
Write down how you spend your life now. What is your daily routine? Be specific: do you always get up in the same way? What do you eat for breakfast? How do you get to work, etc.?
Do you do specific things on specific days? Do you take your holidays at the same time or go to the same place? How much routine is there in your life?
How does this make you feel? Do you feel comforted by routine or stifled by it? Sometimes it's hard to tell until you try making a shift. This weekend you are going to do things completely differently, as often as possible. It may sound contrived but just try it. Sometimes even a small or silly shift can produce a radically different perspective and open up new opportunities. So play with this.
Next to every entry on your paper, write down something opposite or totally different. For instance: buy a croissant on the way to work for breakfast; or make a home breakfast of fresh fruit salad and muesli.
Go through the day in this way and resolve to shift absolutely everything you can this weekend.

Wishful thinking
Take out a large sheet of paper and make a list of 100 things you really wish you could do in your life. They don't need to be practical or sensible and they can range from the small and humdrum (get a haircut; buy some incense) to the medium range (visit a health farm; learn to read tarot cards; go to French evening classes) to really wild scenarios (start your own business; travel round the world; have cosmetic surgery; move to another country).

At the end of the weekend commit yourself to doing at least one during the following week. Underline what you would really love to do. Make a time frame: commit to doing some in the next year. Work out what you could do towards achieving your long-term goals - for example, put aside a small amount of money each week towards that round-the-world trip; find out how to re-train for your ideal career; spend an hour each day (or week) writing your novel.

It's time to rearrange the way you see things.

Saturday: New perspectives

Before you get up, shift your morning regime. If you're usually up at the crack of dawn, try lying in bed, just thinking or with a book. How does it feel to relax like this? If you are a habitual lie-in-bed, set your alarm for dawn and get up with the birds. Prepare to spend the day shifting your perspectives and breaking habits.

Get out and about, trying new things. Be spontaneous. If you usually drive, take a bus, train, or taxi. Don't grab that usual sandwich, treat yourself in a smart restaurant. If you often eat alone, arrange to meet a friend. Then go to at least three shops you would never normally visit. Keep an open mind. In the evening do something you would never usually do: a classical concert, a rock gig; or go salsa dancing. Stay in and pamper yourself; turn off the television (or, if you never watch it, turn it on!). Whatever you do, make sure it is different.

Balancing your Wood element
According to Chinese philosophy, the body is a blend of five elements. The Wood element relates to creativity and expression and if Wood is balanced in your body you will be far more flexible and creative, confident and decisive. Help bring Wood into balance with these simple shiatsu and stretching exercises:

Sit on the floor with your legs spread wide apart. Reach down to your left foot, looking at your right foot, feeling the full stretch down your side and legs. Repeat on the other side.
Stand up with your feet apart. Let your arms swing loosely from side to side for a few minutes. Feel the air on your arms. Be as loose and relaxed as possible.
Lie on your back. Let a friend or partner rotate the joints of your shoulders and hips. Gently and smoothly they should lift your leg or arm and support the shoulder or hip with the other hand. If the joint sticks, gently pull the limb and hold the stretch for a few moments. It should feel good, not painful - don't go beyond what feels comfortable.
Stimulate the Wood element in your body with yoga or these stretches every day.

Feel a stone's energyGo out to your garden, a park, or wild place nearby. Look for a stone, one that 'speaks to you'. You'll know it when you find it. Pick it up and sit quietly with it (or sit by it if it's a huge boulder!). Feel it (with your fingers and hands, against your face); smell it; look at it closely; taste it. Get to know it really well. Now imagine you actually ARE that stone. What is it like? Feel the stone's energy. Don't race this exercise - stone energy is not a swift thing, it takes time and patience.

Find out how to keep viewing the world in a new light through the rest of the weekend - and beyond.

Sunday: Seeing the world differently

What kind of spiritual life do you have? Do you have any spiritual practice? This morning think about expanding your spiritual perspective. Are you a regular worshipper? Think about visiting another place of worship, either of your own or a different faith. Or stay at home and spend some time in meditation and quiet prayer.

If you have no faith and no spiritual practice, think about your relationship to the divine. If you have a longstanding dislike of church or synagogue or mosque, maybe now is the time to re-evaluate. If there is a service this morning, why not go? If not, maybe just visit to get a feel for the place.

Transform a difficult relationship
We can get into bad habits with people just as easily as we can with our activities. This afternoon try a technique to break such a habit. Think of someone with whom you have a bad or difficult relationship.

Sit or lie down and breathe calmly and deeply.
Write down your reasons for the bad relationship. Pour out all your resentment and any feelings of anger.
Set up two chairs. Sit in one and imagine the other person is sitting in the other. Tell them exactly why you find them so difficult.
Swap chairs and imagine you are the other person. Why do they find you so difficult or unreasonable? Slip into their shoes and express their grievances. Swap chairs like this until you understand both sides of the issue. Try to accept that there are two sides to every disagreement. People are just different!
Burn the piece of paper containing your grievances.
Send unconditional love to the person. This may be hard but persist as it is deeply transformative.

Brain gym
Belly breathing and brain buttons are educational kinesiology exercises, which will help you re-tune your brain and start seeing the world in a different way.

Brain buttons
This stimulates the carotid arteries, which supply freshly oxygenated blood to the brain. It helps re-establish directional messages from parts of the body to the brain, so improving reading, writing, speaking and the ability to follow directions.

Rest one hand over your navel.
With the thumb and fingers of the other hand, feel for the two hollow areas under the collarbone, about an inch (2.5 cm) out from the middle of the chest. Rub these areas vigorously for 30 seconds to one minute, as you look from left to right.

Belly breathing
This improves the supply of oxygen to the entire body and relaxes the central nervous system while increasing your energy levels. It can help improve both reading and speaking abilities.

Put your hands on your abdomen. Exhale through your mouth in short little puffs, as if you are keeping a feather in the air, until your lungs feel empty.
Inhale deeply through your nose, filling yourself like a balloon beneath your hand. (By arching your back slightly you can take in even more air.)
Slowly and fully exhale through your mouth.
Repeat this inhalation and exhalation in a natural rhythm during the course of three or more breaths.