THE FIVE AM CLUB

And how it has completely changed my life.

Quien madruga dios ayuda. The literal translation from Spanish to English is, “Those who rise at dawn are helped by God.” And for me, it’s a little more romantic than, “The early bird gets the worm.”

After the best part of fifteen years suffering from insomnia, I can understand how the idea of someone rising happily at five am to work sounds sick, but for the last month this is exactly what my husband and I have been doing and it has had a revolutionary effect on every single aspect of our lives. When you reach forty and you have kids or in our case one kid, you have a shocking understanding of how precious every second of life truly is. You’re uncomfortably aware that you have spent so many days and nights squandering our most precious gift. Our time.

There are not enough hours in the day, we constantly say. But maybe there are…and maybe we are sleeping through them.

After the first week of the 5 am club, we were sold on the idea of telling ourselves to, “Go the fuck to sleep,” when 9.30/10 pm came around. What would we miss by going to bed early? Worrying about life? Scrolling? Watching whatever Netflix says is sound? I read an interview with the head of Netflix and she was flying all over the world and living a fast-paced, very important life and said, “My favorite stories are what I call gourmet cheeseburgers.” Realizing that a streaming channel was searching for gourmet cheeseburgers to feed my soul I haven’t watched many series since. I’m much more interested in my own story and the stories of those I love. My homemade family recipes are passed down from one generation to the next. These stories need time, these stories need deep thinking, feeling, and heart space.

But back to the early bedtimes. I would just say to myself in my mind, Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.” I would do this for what seemed like forever but was probably only a minute and a half and sure enough I’d be asleep before I got too bored of the mantra. I must be sincere here. I haven’t woken up at 5 am on the dot yet. I’m usually awake and up at 5.15/5.30, but what an extraordinary time to be alive. The belly of the black night is still so full of possibilities. I begin each day with a 20/30 minute meditation, followed by a hot cup of tea and my six-minute gratitude diary, then it’s just gone six am and I have TWO HOURS to write, to let my mind wander, to be creative. And these two hours are not just any two hours, Sir. After coming out of a deep meditation in the early hours of the day you are brave and bravery is the thing stopping most of us from following any dream we might have. There is no negative voice at six am to eight am the voice says: RUN, GO, YES YOU CAN, YES YOU WILL, YES YOU ARE!

I’m working on a fiction that has been itching me for a year and boy does it feel very good to finally put healing salve on that unbearable itch. My husband is working on his business idea and he too feels the same wonderful sense of freedom. The same grand sense that, oh my god, there are enough hours in the day!

At eight am our son wakes up in the sun and we put on upbeat music and dance and have breakfast. There is a lightness because no heavy dreams or stress spike up in the subtext of our conversations. Everything runs smoothly because we have been disciplined enough to meditate and dream. We arrive to breakfast elated with as much childlike wonder as our child brings us every day. I feel good about being able to meet his magic with my own. We so often steal children’s miraculous energy without considering what we are giving them back.

I write of this 5 am club this week because even though many feel caught on a mouse wheel regarding their work situation, stuck sometimes, trapped by the rapid money-focused society we have become…we also must remember that this fast society also has lights and gadgets that keep us up way past our bedtimes. We can collectively and individually say are strong and hard NO to these distractions after nine pm.

We can remind ourselves that there are enough hours in the day and we do have a choice in how we use them. Time does not have to slip through your fingers, you can hold it in your hands, mold it, and manifest it into what you want to see.

The only thing you have to do…is go the fuck to sleep.