It usually arrives around six o'clock on Sunday. The light starts to fade, the weekend suddenly feels short, and Monday begins to press on your chest. Emails you haven't opened, meetings, errands, the alarm clock. Many people know this feeling so well it has a name: the Sunday scaries, or Sunday-night dread.
You can't make Monday disappear. But you can change the way Sunday ends.
Why Sunday evening feels so heavy
Often, it's because the mind jumps ahead, rehearsing problems that haven't happened yet. The last hours of the weekend get spent in the week before it starts. A ritual helps because it gives Sunday evening its own shape, and brings your attention back to now.
A slow Sunday ritual, from 5 p.m.
1. Close the weekend kindly. Take five minutes to remember what was good: a meal, a walk, a conversation. Write three lines in a notebook. 2. Give the week ten minutes, no more. Look at your calendar, write down the three things that really matter, then close the notebook. The rest can wait until Monday. 3. Prepare one small kindness for Monday morning. Lay out a nice outfit, set the table for breakfast, put a favorite cup by the kettle. 4. Take a short walk at dusk. Fifteen minutes. Look at the sky changing color, the lights coming on in windows. 5. Make a simple, warm dinner. Soup, bread, something comforting. Eat it slowly, without a screen. 6. End with something beautiful. A bath, a chapter of a novel, a piece of music, a few minutes with a painting. Let the last thing you do on Sunday be for you.
A gentle reminder
The dread is often worse than the Monday itself. When it arrives, notice it, name it ("ah, Sunday-night dread"), and come back to whatever you're doing now. The week will come either way. You may as well keep the evening.
A letter for Sunday evening
The First Letter is a short sensory meditation on receiving a letter, a soft way to end the weekend. It's free to read or listen to, with a sample of my magazine, "(meditating) On Art". Five quiet minutes before the week begins.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi