The Morning Routine (Pillar #6)
The morning is sacred. The birds are singing, the leaves are opening, and light is extinguishing the darkness. Mornings are full of newness. New energy, new opportunities, and new challenges. The first 5 pillars of the Elevate your Vibration series, specifically breathing, proper eating and drinking, quality sleep and intentional movement naturally lead to another critical branch of the tree, the morning routine.
Set Your Intentions
A healthy morning routine will certainly aid in elevating your vibrations through a number of noteworthy benefits. One incredible reward of honing a healthy routine is mindfully setting your intentions for the day. Setting your intention will give a plan to guide and a goal to motivate you throughout the day. Goals and intentions, both long and short term, are keys to growth and transformation. While having a clear goal is important, it is equally important not to get too attached to your goals. Sometimes the universe gives you what you need instead of what you want and you must be able to take surprises in stride. However, setting your daily intention is essential to striving and thriving.
Body Nourishment
Healthy morning routines allow us time and space to perform body, mind and spirit maintenance. While many activities help all three aspects of optimal health, some are more geared to the body and some to the mind. For instance, drinking water before coffee is body maintenance. I suggest adding lemon or lime to your first cup of water in the morning. This will help the functioning of your digestive and circulatory systems. These citrus fruits are high in vitamins and minerals and an excellent addition to any healthy morning routine.
Arising with Gratitude
Lime water should be the first activity to body nourishment gratitude should be the first activity of mental nourishment. You might remember from the Sleeping Pillar, that if you work on quality sleep, you can reset your circadian rhythms allowing you to wake up without an alarm. When I think about the word alarm, I think about loud, disturbing, alarming noises as protection against invasion. When I wake up, I do not want to be alarmed. This is something that can be programmed in two to three days. You can train yourself to get up at whatever time you want, without the stress of an alarm. Whether you wake up with an alarm or your own circadian rhythms, the first thing to do is search for the gratitude in your heart. Gratitude for life, health, and self love. Hold that gratitude close to you, give it a nice big squeeze and maybe even say the word out loud. And before you get out of bed, while holding gratitude firmly in your heart, do all you can to experience the present moment. Do not think about work or family or projects or deadlines. Only think about the absolute present moment, blessed with gratitude. Notice each part of your body while still laying in bed, holding onto gratitude and present moment awareness. Feel your body, love your body.
Create the Routine from Intuition
With a mindset of gratitude, getting out of bed should be a pleasure. Once up and moving, there are numerous directions that you can turn. Turn toward the sun. As plants seem to respond better to the early morning light of the sun, humans do as well. If there is sun, search for the sun to drink your lime water or to sit quietly or to read scriptures. Everyone is quite different and therefore I encourage everyone to listen to their intuition when creating a morning routine. Start with one thing at a time in order to completely integrate new activities into lifestyle habits. And remember consistency is key. It takes between 2 and 8 months to create an automatic habit. But at the same time, don’t get discouraged if you miss a day or two. The Elevate your Vibrations series is based on long term actions to provide a transformational experience.
My Personal Routine
With that said, I would like to share my morning routine. Everything is as intricately connected as the jewels on Indra’s Net. Therefore, I start my morning routine with my before bed routine. I lightly stretch, drink a half glass of water, brush my teeth, and get to sleep early. I normally sleep 8 hours. I wake up between 4 and 4.30am depending on the time of year. As a business owner and father of two incredible boys, this is the only two hours of the day when I can uninterruptedly serve myself. Wrapping myself in gratitude, I get out of bed to put on loose fitting clothes. This is the time I choose to sit for meditation. My mind is most tranquil before the sunrise. I start with some breathwork and neck stretching and then meditate for about 1 hour. Before getting off the cushion, I set my intention for the day.
After my sitting meditation, I clean my mouth. I scrape my tongue twice, gurgle water, spit it out, and then drink a glass of lime water. Every few days I will practice oil pulling for 10 to 15 minutes to further clean toxins from my mouth. I will often brew myself a tea from one of the herbs we have in the garden, whether it be lemongrass, oregano or rosemary. I practice intentional movement in the form of light stretching or sun salutations as the sun reaches over the treeline and lights up our deck. If there are waves, I take the bike down to the beach and surf. If there are not waves, I lay in the hammock, reading an inspiring book. I then take a shower and put on fresh clothes, before preparing and eating breakfast, which normally consists of 3 or 4 types of fruit with granola or oatmeal. And lastly I brush my teeth, holding my daily intention in mind.
Everyone is different with different preferences and therefore there are no right or wrong morning routines. There are only morning routines right and wrong for your body, mind and spirit. Search yours out. If you don’t have waves to surf, go for a walk or bike ride. Or perform yoga or calisthenics. Maybe you would like to clean your mouth and take a shower before you meditate. There are as many morning routines as there are people on the planet. You can create one that resonates most with you and elevates your vibrations.
