WINTER IS COMING : LEARN TO FALL IN LOVE WITH DARK MORNINGS

I would like to be a "morning person" but I have to admit it feels a lot easier to get up early when the summer sun is streaming through my window and I have definitely felt my body struggling to wake up as the mornings get darker. 
My morning routine has changed since last autumn, I now meditate for 20 minutes every day and try to fit in a little bit of exercise too. My goal is to go for a run and meditate every day before work but I've not managed that yet and I decided to look at my routine.
I came across a post on the Free People Blog which I absolutely loved ~

"If there's any season to welcome change into your life, its Autumn. 
Don't just wake up earlier, make adjustments to the rest of your day to account for this change. 
Dawn is a different kind of dark, one full of possibility at the cusp of the day,
a time to appreciate the world around you.
Do some yoga, drink tea, write a few lines about thankfulness.
Our lives are so hectic in one form or another, any time we can set aside time to just "be" is so valuable and rare.
Make time to allow yourself to simply exist, to breathe in a new day and sit quietly.
Try being a morning person and your perspective of the day ahead could change dramatically"

After reading this I realised as well as changing my routine I had to change my attitude to how I felt about the upcoming winter mornings, I began to see it as an opportunity to invest in some "me" time which definitely helped get me out of bed (and the 3 alarms didn't hurt either). For the first time in years I am actually looking forward to Winter and using the time in the morning to fit more into my day and to spend time on myself.

How do you deal with dark mornings? I'd love to hear.

I'M SO GLAD I LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE THERE ARE OCTOBERS.

Autumn is such a short but beautiful season so I took some pics of the changing colour of the trees in Kelvingrove Park (one of my favourite places!) to remind me of this, I also tried to catch images of the leaves as they were falling but my shutter speed skills let me down, maybe next year.

I found some lovely quotes about Autumn too which are so true ~

“Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they're falling like
they're falling in love with the ground.” 
― Andrea Gibson

“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” 
― Albert Camus