Imprinting Our Days with Good

I recently listened to the audiobook of Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren. It’s so thought provoking that I’ve listened to it twice! In this book, Warren discusses how we can be aware of God’s presence during the routines of everyday life.

As she discusses making the bed in the morning, she mentions the concept of imprinting. In the context of animal behavior, imprinting refers to rapid learning that occurs during a brief period (usually soon after birth or hatching). This learning establishes a long-lasting behavioral response to a specific individual or object (e.g., a parent, a physical location). Chicks provide a great example of imprinting. After a chick hatches, it fixes its attention on the first animal or object with which it has a visual, auditory, or tactile experience, even if this isn’t its mother. This is why you’ll sometimes see a chick following around an animal such as a dog!

Of course, things aren’t exactly the same for humans. However, Warren makes the case that we experience a little bit of imprinting each day. She suggests that we are imprinted by the way we start our days. In other words, the first things we do in the morning impact the rest of our days. She shares about how her days used to be imprinted with technology use (such as checking social media or looking at the news). When she would start a day by checking these, she found it difficult to stop checking them as the day progressed.

I’ve given this concept some thought over the last couple of months and I agree that we can be imprinted by the things we experience early in the morning. On mornings when I hit snooze several times instead of getting up when my alarm sounds, I tend to struggle with laziness throughout the whole day. I’ll skip my devotional and exercise time (I read my Bible while riding an exercise bike) because I’m running late and it just goes downhill from there. On the other hand, when I get up on time, get on the bike, and do some reading and praying, I generally approach the rest of the day with enthusiasm.

I certainly don’t believe we’re held prisoner by our early morning experiences. In fact, I’ve written before about ways we can stop bad days in their tracks. We can definitely battle this imprinting and win, but I think it is a lot easier to make sure we’re imprinting our days with good things!

What is “good” will vary from one person to the next, but here are the things with which I try to imprint my days:

• Getting up the first time my alarm sounds
• Spending time with the Lord (e.g., reading the Bible, praying)
• Getting exercise
• Waking my girls with a big smile, lots of hugs/kisses, and a song of praise to God
• Eating a nutritious breakfast
• Getting dressed and doing my hair (this sounds obvious, but it can be challenging as a stay-at-home mom)

Doing these things doesn’t guarantee that my day will go well, but if I don’t do them it’s pretty likely my day will go poorly!

Do your early morning experiences impact the rest of your day? What things do you want to imprint your day?

Shared at the following:

Modest Monday, Encouraging Hearts and Home, Grace and Truth, Moments of Hope, and Tuesdays with a Twist.