Episode 192: Designing A Mindful Morning Routine
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Introduction
Hello, welcome back to Live Free Creative. I am your host, Miranda Anderson. You’re listening to episode number 192, Designing a Mindful Morning Routine.
My kids finished school for the year tomorrow. I know we’re super late. I think that most of the country is out of school and has been for a couple of weeks. I have loved having a little bit longer school year this year. One big reason, and this is kind of silly, but one big reason is that my middle son, his birthday is on June 21st.
He has always wanted to have his birthday be during the school year so that he could have the fun of being with classmates around his birthday. My kids get the day off on their birthday, so he didn’t go to school on the 21st, but the day after he got to bring treats to his class and celebrate his birthday.
This is the very first time ever that he has had his birthday during the school year. So, it felt extra special. When we looked at the school calendar and realized how late our classes went this year, our first thought was yay. Elliot gets to celebrate his birthday with his friends at school. So that is fun.
I am super looking forward to the summertime. I love the summer. I love the slowness of it. This summer we have made some different decisions than we have in the past. We have a few sorts of weekend trips and light travel plan. But most of our summer, we intend to be going on bike rides as a family and setting up lemonade stands on the corner and going to the local pool to hang out with our friends. I am taking some tennis lessons. The kids each have one camp. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago. It is going to be fun.
My Mindful Morning Routine
One powerful, consistent practice that I’m able to maintain in the summer and the fall, the winter, and the spring, because I have claimed it and owned it for my own is a mindful morning routine.
The way that I wake up in the first, the first 20 to 40 minutes of my day is consistent with a ton of intention, a ton of purpose. And I defend this morning routine, fairly fiercely, like, and my kids are a little bit older, so I can say, I will get, I will help you with breakfast in 20 minutes, I will be able to help you later, you know, get, grab a book or hop in the shower or do something independently because this is my time to do the things that I need to do to start my day with some intention, with some purpose, with a little bit of joy, a little bit of presence.
I want to share these thoughts with you. And for those of you who have a great morning routine, I hope that this episode will kind of reinforce some of the things that you have already understood. And some of the things you’re already doing for those of you who don’t, who want one, I give some really sort of clear and specific ideas that you can implement and try.
I want to mention that there is a free PDF download worksheet that goes along with this episode, that will be available in the show notes. If you go to livefreecreative.co/podcast, look for episode 192, and there’ll be a place to just enter in your email so that you can have the PDF sent directly to your inbox to work on that this idea of creating a mindful morning routine for yourself.
Segment: Peaks of the Week
Before I dive into the episode, I want to share peaks of the week.
Let’s talk about a couple of my very favorite summertime ideas.
- Lavender Lemonade
Number one peak of the week for heading into summer is making homemade herbs lemonade. This is something that I have done for years, and it just feels like the height of summer to me, homemade lemonade is really. I have a recipe for earth lemonade on my blog. I’ll link it in the show notes if you want, like the specific recipe. But the idea is that you make a simple syrup with a cup of sugar and a cup of water, and you heat that until the sugar dissolves.
You don’t even have to heat it necessarily. It just speeds up the process. If you leave it out for like a long time, it will, the sugar will eventually dissolve, but I like to heat it to make a simple syrup. And then you mix the simple syrup with I like equal parts, simple syrup and lemon juice. And then three more parts of water.
If you want, like the very specific recipe or you want to be able to reference it and look at it, that is going to be available on my blog. After you mixed, the simple syrup, the lemon juice and the water. I like to add fresh herbs. It can be so fun. You can add any herbs. I love basil lemonade. I love rosemary lemonade.
There was a time when we lived in DC and I really, really wanted some lavender lemonade and I couldn’t locate lavender. I looked at Whole Foods. I looked at the farmer’s market. Now the solution has been that I grow lavender in my own garden, so I have access to it when I want it. But at the time I had a really hard time finding lavender.
I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but I grew up in Holladay in the house where I grew up. My mom has these huge clumps of lavender all around the front porch. So, the entire front porch is wrapped in lavender. It was just a part of my childhood part of growing up in the fall. She would cut it down and hang it upside down in the pantry. We always had dried lavender on hand to make sachets or to mix into shortbread or whatever lavender.
I like assumed that it was just a readily available ingredient, when in fact it can be a little tricky to find. And I remember driving down the street in Alexandria, Virginia, when Dave and I were living in the DC area. And I noticed the median of the street. I was, for those of you who are familiar with the DC area with Alexandria, I was on Van Dorn, which is kind of a big street. It’s like a multi-lane, kind of a busy road.
And I looked out my window and I noticed that there was wild lavender growing in the media. And I am not kidding. I put on my hazard lights, I got out of my car. Luckily it was, I was in the driver’s seat. And so, the left was right outside my door, and I always keep this is like a whole other aside, but I always keep a pair of scissors in my glove compartment. I pulled out my scissors and I chopped down a handful of wild lavender washed it. When I got home and made lavender lemonade for my friends. So funny, they all just cracked up that I had, you know, this was like true urban foraging for my lavender lemonade.
I get so excited as the weather warms up too. I just look forward to creating these herbs lemonades. I even made a black pepper corn lemonade a few years ago. That was so delicious. It was, it was like equal parts, sweet, spicy, and sour. Have fun with your kids, making some, some herbs lemonades this summer with that simple recipe. And yeah, that’s what, that’s my number one peak of the week for summer herbed lemonade.
- Gathre Mat
My second peak of the week for getting ready for the summertime is a great picnic blanket and or Gathre Mats. So, I think, I guess the true peak of the week would be a Gather Mats, I don’t know if you’ve seen these, they’re bonded leather mats that are water resistant because they’re not like material fabric.
Stuff doesn’t like stick to them very easily. I have two sizes. One is like the medium one and one is the huge, large one. They fold up small. They are so wonderful for popping in your bag or keeping in the back of your car so that wherever you go, you can. Toss down your mat and whether it’s the beach or you’re next to the river, or you’re on the grass and the grass is a little bit wet or you’re somewhere where there’s like a little bit of, you know, the sprinklers have just gone. It’s a little bit muddy having a great picnic blanket or mat to throw down is just so important.
And I love the Gathre Mat. So, I backed their Kickstarter. This is how long it goes back. They, the company started as a Kickstarter called Let’s Playground. And my, one of the mats that I still have and use every year is from their original Kickstarter, which was like, I’m going to say it was like seven, eight, maybe even like nine or 10 years ago. Let’s Playground rebranded into Gathre.
And I will link it in the show notes there a little bit of an investment, you know, around a hundred or $120 for a mat. I can vouch for them being useful. If you want to do a lot of outdoor activities and have kind of like a home-based to throw down, they also last forever. So, I have, like I mentioned, I have a couple and I’ve used them for years and years. I even have one, that’s a tablecloth that we use almost all the time at home so that our table can be like craft center and painting zone and clay zone. And then I can just wipe it up easily. So, my second pick of the week is a Gathre Mat.
- Author Elin Hilderbrand
My third peak of the week is not a single book, but an author Elin Hilderbrand. What feels like one of the most epic summertime lighthearted, easy read contemporary romance novelist. She resides on Nantucket and most of her novels take place. They’re like on the island, they’re all breezy novels like Summer of 69, The Tailgate, Beautiful Day, The Surfing Lesson, The Perfect Couple, and The Identicals.
She has 27 or 28 novels. And if you’re just looking for a stack of easy breezy lighthearted, Yeah, it’s still interesting. And well-written summertime novels. I have read like most of them, I probably should like print off a list and check off the ones that I’ve read. And once I haven’t so that I know what to scoop up the next time that the library Elin Hilderbrand feels like summer to me. So, I highly recommend for some easy summer reading. They’re very fun.
Those my friends, are my peaks of the week.
Tips for Designing Your Own Mindful Morning Routine
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Now let’s dive into this episode about creating a mindful morning routine. This episode was originally a bonus episode that aired in my podcast plus Patreon group. It has never aired here on the main feed. So, if you’re a longtime listener and you aren’t a podcast plus member, you have not heard it, it will be all new for you.
If you are a podcast plus member or a former podcast plus member, uh, this was the very first bonus episode that I did years ago, and it maintains all the value that it had in its original release. So, I hope that you’ll enjoy listening that you’ll find the PDF on the show notes printed out and go to work, applying some of the principles about creating a mindful morning routine in your life as you head into the summertime.
Today’s episode is all about creating a mindful morning routine. And I am so excited to walk you through this process. It’s something that I have been walking myself through and feeling successful with the way that it has gone.
The Way We Begin The Day Sets The Tone
I hope to share some of my insights and some applicable tips for how to make this work in your life. No matter your circumstances, your stage, what you’re going through, creating a mindful morning routine is something that will help in all aspects of your life. Because the way we start our day is the way we live our lives.
I just made that up and I’m not even sure if it’s completely true. What I know is true though, is that the way we begin our day really sets the tone for the rest of the day and that our life is nothing but a series of days all in a row.
So, if we can do something to just increase our patience, our presence, and our joy a little bit, get ourselves on the right foot to begin. It’s a lot easier to kind of set that tone and allow that presence to then come with us, to carry it with us through the rest of the day.
One of my very favorite things about this show is when I hear that someone has not only listened and enjoyed listening to the show but has taken the information that I share and applied it directly to their lives and their circumstance. That is, it has been an agent of change and made an impact for good for them to. Be living more aligned with the life that they dream of. I talk about the purpose of the show being to inspire you to live a more creative, adventurous, and intentional lifestyle. And that is exactly what I hope to do.
Not only inspire you to listen to some beautiful ideas, but to live the ideas, take the pieces of them that resonate with you, apply it to your own life and circumstance, and then feel the difference that it makes. I’m sure you all can think about a time when someone has told you something and said, this is great. This is helpful. You should see how this works in your life.
It will really make a difference and you’ve thought, yeah, it probably would. And then you don’t do it and you don’t do it and you don’t do it. And then one day, for whatever reason, you hear it again, or its kind of, for some reason, switches that, that switch, and you think I really am going to do that.
And then you start doing it and you think. How have I not lived like this before? Why did it take me so long to understand that making real, even small changes in my life dramatically affects the way that I feel today?
The Framework
We’re going to jump into talking about creating a mindful morning routine. First. I want to talk about why it matters. Why do we even talk about a morning routine? What is a morning routine? Why does it make a difference if you think about it or not?
Second, I want to discuss obstacles. The reasons why you are not already living with a mindful morning routine, the reasons that your mornings don’t always go the way that you hope they will. Give you some tools to overcome those obstacles.
And then third, and the final thing I’m going to do is talk through a few different ingredients for a wonderful mindful morning routine. And these are umbrella ingredients. So, they will be able to apply to any situation and to your unique life. I know that not everyone wants to do the same types of things every day. That’s part of the whole reason that I share my show is so that you get to know yourself and you get to live your own best life and not be looking around for what is everyone else doing so that you can figure out what you’re supposed to do. It’s much better to look inside yourself and figure out for yourself what makes a difference in your own life. And so, the things that I recommend are going to be open-ended.
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Why Mindful Mornings?
So, let’s start with number one. And on your worksheets, you will answer all these questions. You’ll be able to work through it. So, I’m not going to refer to them specifically the whole episode, but just know that if you, that some notes are there some basic notes and, uh, the places where you can write down, ask yourself some questions and start to establish for yourself what will work in your life, or at least the first thing you want to try.
Why does the morning even matter that much? I want you to think about what happens during the night. Do you know what’s happening during the night in your brain, you lay down, you go to sleep, you get into these different sleep cycles and REM, and what is happening, what is happening as you sleep is rest and repair recuperation for your body and for your brain.
Your brain is part of your body. But specifically, sleep is the time that your brain uses to recover from the different thought processes that you’ve had during the day. Sometimes that means wiring specific pathways that have been used so that they can be used more quickly and efficiently.
This is when the brain starts to separate what information acquire during the day is necessary to continue storing and what information is waste and can be let go of. It’s a really important time. And so, you can imagine that when you wake up. Your brain has just exercised and rejuvenated itself and restored itself and tried to kind of get to this base level of feeling, um, ready, feeling ready, and prepared for the new day.
Every day truly is a new beginning for your brain. You wake up with a different brain than you fall asleep with because it changes as you sleep. So, what you do with the first moments and minutes and experiences with your brain, right? When you wake up, greatly affect it, they determine how your brain is set up for processing throughout the day.
You can set yourself up for positivity, for optimism, for presence, for patients, for gratitude, or you can set yourself up for distraction for grumpiness, and for impatience. And for difficulty, of course.
This is not to say that if you have a beautiful morning routine, that you might not encounter difficulties or lose your temper or feel impatient later in the day, likewise, you can have a terrible morning routine and you can wake up and spend an hour scrolling Instagram and then eat pizza and then not go on to have some lovely and efficient parts of your day as well.
Set Yourself Up For Success
However, we’re talking about setting yourself up for success about increasing not only how you feel in the first few minutes of your day, but also enabling that to have power, to help perpetuate how you feel that goodness, the good feelings throughout the rest of your day.
I have heard hundreds of arguments for setting yourself up for success by having a wonderful, mindful morning routine. And I’ve never heard a single argument against it. I’ve never heard someone say by research that if you have a slow, wonderful morning routine, that it somehow ruins the rest of your day, have you, so the why is simply this. If we want to live a better life, we can choose to set ourselves up for success with the most simple and specific pieces.
And the morning routine is always a specific time. It’s unlike some other things in the day that kind of change and can come and go your morning. Right? When you wake up, what you do when you wake up is something that you can institute as almost a habit stack because. You will always wake up what you do, right?
When you wake up, what you think, what your attention grabs. That’s something that if you choose it, that it can become part of your natural rhythm and you can create a beautiful, positive, natural rhythm with that morning. Does that make sense? You with me, yes. Miranda we’re with you all sunshine and rainbows about why it’s a good thing. I don’t know if any of you are arguing with me about whether it’s a good thing to have a mindful morning routine.
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Why Don’t We? The Obstacles.
Number two, this is where we get into the issue. Why do we not do it? If we know what we’re supposed to do, or at least that we’re supposed to try to have some sort of mindfulness or connection or presence in our morning?
Why do we not do it? Okay. So, this is an important one and this is going to be personal. So, I’m going to refer you to your worksheet to do some of this work. What is it that happens in your morning that keeps you from having a specific routine that you follow? Is it that you don’t choose when you wake up because your children wake you up? Is it that you have a nursing baby?
By the time you’ve been up at one and you’ve been up at three and you’ve been up at 5:30 am, the last thing you want to do is get up at 6:30 am and try to do anything that you don’t have to do because you’re so freaking tired. Is it that your partner gets up and goes to work early or that you must get up and go to work early? Is it that you’re simply really, tired? Is it that your kids must go to school? What is it about the mornings that makes it difficult to have some sort of a routine? Is it that you feel like you have so much to do? That you don’t want to spend any extra time doing things that you don’t feel like you must do because your life just feels so busy.
There’s always something more I’m thinking about as I give you these examples. I’m thinking about myself, my past selves and what are some of the reasons that for years, I mean, really for a dozen years, except for in kind of fits and starts in different specific periods that I haven’t had much of a consistent morning routine.
I’ve heard from friends about theirs and been a little bit envious that they had this presence in the morning that I didn’t seem to have. And what were my obstacles? Well, I’ve listed a lot of them for you. If you can think of more for yourself, I want you to write them down. I think sometimes. The idea of what the problem is, feels bigger in our head than it does when we just write it down and get it out there.
Write Down Your Obstacles
So, I want you to do this, write down the reasons that you feel like creating a mindful morning routine might be difficult, or what obstacles you might face as you approach this exercise, write them down so that you can squarely look at them and decide if it is an obstacle or not.
Some of the things that we consider to be obstacles are just inconvenient. That might have very simple solutions. And so, I want you to think about that. I’m going to give you just a few simple solutions right now that may or may not work for your circumstance, but I want you to consider that there is always the possibility to make things work that you want to work.
I recently heard about Marie Forleo’s new book, and I love the title. I haven’t read it yet, but the title is Everything is Figureoutable. And I heard that title and I thought, gosh, I feel like I could have written that book because I feel like that you’re never completely stuck. It’s never hopeless. There is always a solution. Everything is figure-out-able. Creating a mindful morning routine is the same way.
Everything Is Figureoutable
Let me just walk you through some examples and some of your own specific circumstances will be things that you’re going to have to work through for yourself. But let me give you a few examples. If your kids wake you up in the most. You don’t set an alarm. They just happened to get up super early.
This is something that my kids did. Consistently until they were like six or seven years old. It almost didn’t matter what time I chose to wait, wake up. My kids woke me up five, 10 minutes before my alarm would’ve gotten me up even then. So that was tricky. Yes. What is a simple solution to still maintain a morning routine? Even if your kids wake you up before you have a chance to get.
One solution is to include your kids in the routine. So, you can have the morning routine, be a family morning routine where you don’t wake up and meditate by yourself, but you wake up and turn on a family meditation, a kid style, meditation that all of you could do together. Maybe part of the morning routine involving your kids is putting on an audio book for them for 15 minutes to give you that 15 minutes of presence with yourself and connection with yourself.
Your morning routine becomes their morning routine as well, so that everyone can get what they need. First thing in the morning, if your obstacle is that you’re just really, tired. And so, the idea of getting up a half hour earlier, just doesn’t seem possible. I want you to consider this very simple solution, go to bed earlier.
Honestly, this is the simplest solution and yet, so many of us, just for some reason, have this affinity for staying up late at night, working on things or watching things or scrolling things. And we don’t need to, I can tell you that the main reason that my mindful morning routine the last couple months has been consistently working is because I am consistently going to bed on time.
That for me right now looks like 9:30 pm. My body says it’s time for bed. And at 10 o’clock, I turn off my light. So even if I’ve been reading or talking to Dave at 10 o’clock, my light goes out and I start going to sleep and usually do that with a Headspace, nighttime meditation, which is they’re called it’s called a sleep cast. And so, I turn off my light and I, even if I’m not super tired, here’s the thing at 10 o’clock.
I’m not usually super tired. So, I use a tool to help me wind down and go to sleep. And that is the sleep cast from the Headspace meditation. If you think about all the reasons that are keeping you up super late at night, I’m very curious if any of them are things that warrant disrupting the whole rest of your schedule.
So, consider the idea if you’re super tired in the morning, waking up early, consider the idea that you could go to bed a little bit earlier in order to make up. Now, I’m not going to go through every single obstacle, but I think I’ve given you the tools to write them down and look at them and think about them. And then, then consider what is a solution to this problem. There’s probably a very simple solution to that issue. You just need to give it a little time and consciously work it out so that you know what to do, how to create space in the morning for yourself.
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Three Steps To A Mindful Morning Routine
Now I’m going to move on to these three steps, the three elements of a mindful morning routine, my mindful morning routine. I’m just going to keep calling it a mindful morning routine because it sounds good. I give myself 30 minutes. So, I wake up a half hour earlier than I wake up my kids and my kids are finally to the point now that they’re 10, eight, and five, where they sleep basically until I wake them up.
Most days they’re not my boys woke up at like five in the morning from the time they were born until they were six. So, I understand. And I’ve been there, and I know that’s rough if you happen to be there right now, still create time for yourself in the morning, even if it’s just by putting on like a great PBS learning show for a half hour. So, you give yourself this specific time. I think 30 minutes is ideal. You may only have 15. That feels doable for you. I think that still can be, we can work with 15.
I think anything less than that starts to feel like it’s not actually giving time to this process. You do, especially because if you’re tired and you’re just trying to wake up, you might need a few minutes just to like to come to consciousness.
I’m going to suggest one big rule. In addition to the three elements of what we want to include in our mindful morning routines. I want you to understand that there is one element that is not welcome in the mindful morning routine, and that is internet or social media.
I know because I have been chained by my phone, the same way that so many of us are that it has become an epidemic. That the first thing we do when we wake up is scroll through our phone. Whether you check your emails or scroll through Instagram or Facebook, whatever your social media vice of choice is. I understand that that is just habitual in our society. It’s just kind of a thing that we do, and it is a detrimental thing.
Put Your Phone Away
It is an unnecessary thing. There are 12 hours in the waking day that we can use to look at our phones. The first thing that we do in the morning should not be to subject our brains once it has healed, and it has restored pathways and it’s been working on memory, and it’s been doing all this fantastic restful work.
We do not want the first thing that we feed to our brains to be the overstimulation of other people’s lives and content online. The very first thing, it’s like one of those sci-fi movies where the people are all avatars and they like don’t even remember what it’s like to be in the real world because they walk around as avatars inside, like a video game or inside this other world.
When you wake up, leave your phone off until your morning routine has entered. That is something that I want you to try to commit to. And I know if it’s a habit for you is going to be tricky. I know a lot of people say, put your phone in another room that has not traditionally worked for me because I like to use the Headspace app to fall asleep at night with a sleep cast. Sometimes I listened to a book after with, you know, an audible it’s cool. This is just a tangent, but on audible you can put on a sleep timer mode, so you can listen to your book, and it will automatically turn off after 15 minutes or a half hour.
I just tuck my phone under my pillow and listen to it as like quietly through my pillow as I fall asleep. And then it turns off for me automatically. So, I like having my phone for the technol technology that does not include surfing the internet. I also use the Headspace app for my morning meditation, which I’m going to talk about in a few minutes. And so, I don’t think that it’s terribly detrimental to have your phone nearby.
What is detrimental is that by having it nearby, you want to reach for it. You want to do it know that said, this is something that I’ve been working on and talking about and thinking about and knowing that I didn’t want to get online first thing, but it was a habit. It was deeply ingrained. What has changed that for me, it is two things.
One that simply by creating a specific, mindful morning routine, I have given myself something specific to do when I wake up, I think we need a few minutes to kind of unwind right? When we wake up, like not unwind, but like wind up, maybe that we want to become conscious and like get feeling in our body and, and kind of breath and open our eyes. So, for some reason, like grabbing our phones is a way to becoming to that consciousness without having to do anything.
Because if you don’t have something else to do, you will do what you’ve always done. If you don’t have something specific that you’re giving yourself as an alternative, then your body will naturally do what it has been doing, which is probably for a lot of you grabbing your phones and scrolling through it. And if it is not praise you for already, like not having that crazy addiction that we all have, ironically, it wasn’t deciding to not use my phone that got me not using my phone or scrolling my phone. First thing in the morning or at night, it was deciding what I did want to do. It was bringing a level of intention to this routine, to how I spend my time.
A lot of this has to do with my block schedule and deciding that I wanted to live my life even more on purpose than I had been.
If you listened to episode 56 of the podcast Planning From the Inside Out and block scheduling, you will have all the information on that. I feel like every aspect of my life has become more intentional as I started using this method of planning. And what I’m sharing today is how I apply it specifically to my morning routine.
So, I want you to just commit to me that you are going to try this for one week, that you’re going to establish your morning routine, and you’re going to try it for one week. And that includes not using your phone. First thing in the morning, not using it at all until your morning routine is complete. Can I get an amen?
I trust you to trust me that you’re going to feel better having this amount of control over yourself in the morning. Okay. So that is what not to include no scrolling. Let’s talk about what to include in a mindful morning routine. Now, like I mentioned, all of us are so different. Our lives are different and the things that we want to include in our mindful morning routines may be different, but I am going to suggest that three elements should remain the same for all of us.
The Three Elements: Connect to Source, Connect to Self, Connect to Others
Connect to Source
One is connect ourselves to source energy or source power. Two is to connect ourselves to ourselves and three is to connect ourselves to someone else, specifically family or friends. Okay. So, let’s begin with number one, connect to source. Source energy can mean a lot of different things. And depending on your own spiritual practices and spiritual beliefs, it may be different source power and energy can look like God can look like nature can look like intelligence can look like a humanity, a greater cause than yourself.
Connecting to our source allows us to have perspective, to feel like we have this eternal value and worth that existed before today. And that will exist beyond today. It allows us to sit in peace with who we are, knowing that there is something greater than ourselves that we get to be a part of some suggestions that I have for connecting to source energy. Saying a prayer, a personal prayer. I pray to God.
You may pray to something else but saying a prayer to create that connection to source meditation is an incredible way to connect to source to the feeling that there is something beyond just right now, gratitude practices can connect us to source. Being grateful is such a powerful practice and allows us to go beyond ourselves.
To understand that all of this is coming from somewhere, that the blessings and the feelings and the environment and the goodness that exists in our lives, didn’t originate with us, that it originated beyond us. And that is to where our gratitude is directed.
A simple thing is breathing. Counting your breaths breathing in and out and connecting that presence. You can imagine yourself breathing with the rest of the world, that taking those deep breaths as a, as a human, as a person, how important you are as you breathe in and out and your heart beats.
You can understand that that is something that connects us to everyone else, that deep inhale, exhale, that heart beating within our chest, that every single one of us alive on this planet uses those same faculties for our life source. Maybe a little existential, but if that works for you to feel like you’re connecting soul to soul, body, to body energy, to energy with this greater source, that is powerful in my morning routine right now, the first thing that I do is meditate. And pray.
And so, I wake up, I like to sit up straight. I let my kind of eyes open, and I take a couple deep breaths just to like, feel circulation into my body. And then I turn on the Headspace app and I complete a morning meditation.
After I complete that morning meditation that connects me, it brings me presence. Then I offer a prayer and that prayer generally is mostly a prayer of gratitude. So, I am connecting to source through a couple different mediums that allow me to feel this energy and this wholeness and this presence, which is powerful. It’s a powerful way to start the day. It gives an incredible perspective to start the day without scrolling through social media, without being in a rush, to hop out of bed and get something done, but to pause, to make that connection to.
Connect to Self
Journaling
Number two connect to self. This is another incredible piece of the puzzle for your morning routine. You connect to source and feel a part of it all. And then you bring it back home and you do something that allows you to feel like yourself. This can look like writing in a journal, exercising saying a mantra, maybe regularly having a cup of tea or your morning coffee, doing yoga, doing some reading, just for fun things that allow you to bring all that energy back in and feel at home in yourself and some self-care and love.
That is something that is powerful in your morning routine. What this looks like in my morning routine right now is writing in my journal. And I must tell you I’m doing a couple different journals right now. It feels a little funny, but I also really, really love the time that I’m spending. I’m going to tell you about them right now.
And one or more of them may work well for you. So, I have three different types of journals and I’m alternating, and I don’t have it on a specific system. Whichever I sort of feel pulled to or inspired to that day. That’s the one that I’m picking up. But every single day I am writing something in one of them.
One of the reasons this practice has been powerful for me is that writing itself, just the act of writing and especially reflexive writing is a tool for. Processing for connection. And just for general wellbeing, I listened to a great podcast episode between Alison Faulkner of the Alison Show. And Ash Mae Holland of Birds of Ash Mae. Ash Mae is a writer and she discusses all the different reasons why writing is so powerful. And in that episode, she gives some specific tools to help you get started. If this isn’t something that has worked for you before, let me share the three different types of journals that I’m using in case one of them sparked some inspiration from.
The one that I’m probably truly the most excited about right now is that I have three editions of the promptly journals promptly as a company that creates books that are journals from mothers to their children.
They start from conception all the way to 18 years in one book. And it’s called Promptly because each section has different prompts. So, you’re not just expected to write stories about your child, but it gives you these small prompts and you fill out like a question-answer. And it’s been amazing.
Now I must admit, I have had these journals since before Plum. She was a baby when I got them. And this is the first time that I have been consistently writing in them. Part of it was that I was daunted, and I had a lot going on when I had a baby and two toddlers. And I didn’t have a consistent routine for it.
Part of it was that I got overwhelmed that my kids were not all babies. Plum was a baby, but the other boys weren’t babies anymore. And how was I going to catch up on five years of life that, you know, some of which I had already forgotten, and I got myself feeling bogged down in the guilt of not having done something like this consistently from the time my kids were born. Now, what a silly reason to not start now feeling bad that I didn’t start sooner is the reason that I’m not starting now.
That’s ridiculous. So, what I’ve done is pulled out all three journals and I’ve set them on the windows. I have a great new window bench in my bedroom. And so, I sit on the window seat and each day I only use about five minutes for journaling, but I grab one that I haven’t written in.
You know, I kind of am going in order with those and I write down something for where they are right now. So, I’m filling out the ten-year-old chapter for Milo. I’m filling out the eight-year-old chapter for Eliot. I’m filling out the five-year-old chapter for Plum. I’m starting with what happened yesterday. I’m starting with how they are right now because this is the season that I’m in right now and what I can speak to. And as I’m filling out these pages, it’s making me more aware of how incredibly wonderful each of my kids is individual. And it also. It just feels so good to be doing it.
The other day I remembered something about Milo when he was a baby and even, I chatted about it for a second. And then this morning, during my morning routine, I took those five minutes to pull his journal out. I flipped to the nine-month section, and I filled in a story. The story that I had just remembered was about something that Milo did when he was nine months old.
It just feels so wonderful to be writing. I’m connecting to myself and connecting to my kids. As I do this, the Promptly Journals are great. And I would suggest that you not get overwhelmed if you’re interested in doing this, if you get them, it’s okay that you didn’t start sooner. Start with wherever you are. Your children will be happy to have whatever memories you have.
This practice is not for my kids. This practice is a personal practice for me to spend time writing and reflecting as a journal. That’s the first type of journal I’m using. The second type of journal is a mood diary that I got from People I’ve Loved is the brand. And I got it about a year ago.
You’re going to sense a theme here. I caught it about a year ago and I never filled it out because I was feeling overwhelmed with the idea of like, not being able to do it perfectly or what would happen. What has happened is that now that I’ve just started it’s okay. That I don’t do it every day. I’m not telling myself that I must fill out that journal every day, but it’s giving me space to think about what are the emotions that I’m most often feeling and what are some of the things that might be causing them.
So that’s what this mood journal does. You write down, just a couple of things that you do during the day, and then you reflect on the emotions that you were feeling most often during the day, it’s been a fascinating practice and I’ll probably talk more about it in a different podcast episode.
The third type of journal that I’m using is from LetterFolk Company. It’s just, that they’re like daily tracking. The way that it’s set up, it wouldn’t have to be this one. It’s almost like I’m using it as a regular notebook, but what I’m doing in this journal is probably something you’ve seen a lot of people do where you write down some of your goals as if they’ve already happened.
Now, the difference is I’m not doing this one every single day, I’m alternating, but at least every three or four days, I’m writing down. A list of 10 goals that are things. And I write them down as if they are already happening or happened. And I also, there’s a little reflexive part at the bottom where I just am writing down one or two things that feel important to me right now.
Now, this has been an amazing practice, both to consider every day or every couple of days. What are the things that are my big goals? What are my big dreams? And are they changing and shifting or are they the same? And how does it feel? When you write something in present, it helps you think through what those feelings might be when it does happen.
And that’s a cool thing to get, to experience the feelings of, you know, what will it feel like when XYZ happens? I mean, some of mine are simple, like, I am an exceptional mother. I am a supportive and encouraging wife.
Those are two that I write down every time that I do it and how that shifts my perspective because I begin to assume that role. I am an exceptional mother. I am a supportive and encouraging wife. And then throughout the day, my brain has captured that as one of the first things that happened in the morning, recognizing this is who I am. And then it helps me to create that reality. Is that cool or what? The other reason is that journaling, even just free-flow journaling can be helpful. Is this your brain?
Like I talked about at the beginning of the episode has done so much incredible work overnight as you’ve been resting and it’s been recovering and it’s been, and it’s been working, working, working, connecting pathways, and doing all this stuff and working on memories and working on, uh, systems and habits and all of those things that we want. And some of that information. Is ready. Like it’s, it’s kind of just bubbling over in the morning, first thing. And if you give a place for it to come out, our creativity works best with seasons of rest.
I’m going to talk about that again in another episode. But remember, that when you’re resting that time away from actively working on the problem is when most of your Eureka moments might happen. And this has happened to me so many times.
And I will tell you how grateful I am to have a pen and paper ready for me in the morning because there are multiple times, including a couple of days ago where I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking about an issue or a problem or a project. And I dream it.
I wake up and when the, a couple of days ago, when I did my meditation, I went over, I sat down and I opened the journal and I started to write and I realized that I remembered that I had been dreaming about this actual in this case, it was a presentation that I’m going to give. And I wrote down the presentation, the way that I had been thinking about it, that I could remember because it had only been a few minutes that I’d been awake and I gave myself a place, to let this come out. It was like, subconsciously my brain was subconsciously solving my problem. And then it all came out and now I have it.
Now I have it written down and I told Dave, I had a breakthrough in my presentation because I dreamed it. And now I know what to say. And that seems so silly maybe, but it’s so true when we give ourselves place to connect to ourselves, to our own minds and souls that are wanting to tell us something, we write those things down.
As we journal or connect with ourselves that way in the morning, then we get to remember them, and we get to enjoy them even. Now journaling is not the only way to connect with yourself.
Exercising
A lot of you may have the habit already of exercising. First thing in the morning, there are a lot of reasons why exercise works great.
First thing in the morning. And one of them, I would put, that activity into this category, that you can connect with yourself, with your body, move your body, feel the energy that comes as you exercise. That is an incredible practice that can help you think of what it is for you. What is going to work well for you or the way that you would like to connect to yourself in the morning, the way that you are going to create this, maybe it’s affirmations. Maybe it’s some sort of mantra. Maybe it’s some other sort of self-love consider what it is and define it for yourself so that you can put it into practice.
Connect Outside Yourself
We’re onto the final element. And this is a connection to someone outside of yourself. This does not mean getting on Instagram. This means connecting in the flesh with the people and animals that exist in your life right now. Maybe you think I’m joking about the animals, but I read a study about how to interact with your pets first thing in the morning can cause greater levels of happiness and satisfaction throughout the day.
So, what does it look like? This connection to someone else? It can look like making breakfast for your kids, having a short conversation with your spouse, or even just a true hug and kiss that you’re feeling. Someone’s someone else’s body and that you’re feeling connected in the flesh to someone else. Maybe you take the dog on a walk. Maybe you snuggle with your cat, or you feed your chickens, which are other than the cat taking my dog on a walk and feeding my chickens are both things that I do in the morning that make me feel connected to something outside of me.
Maybe you call a friend, maybe you write a letter, have a real conversation, looking into someone’s eyes. Now, if you live alone and you don’t have any pets, then this is a little trickier, but I still want to offer you the advice that you include a connection to someone else in your morning routine. Maybe that looks like the first person that you come in contact within the day, looking into their eyes and giving them a genuine smile.
Connecting person to person in the morning is the beauty of humanity, it allows us to feel part of a community. There is I’m sure you’ve heard about a loneliness epidemic that’s happening. The more connected we get online, the less connected we are in person, including this element in your morning routine allows you to keep the loneliness at bay to some level, because I have decided to leave my phone away, turned off, and in my bag or on my desk throughout my whole morning routine, until my kids have not only eaten breakfast and gotten ready, but we’ve already walked to school and they have gone inside the building and I’ve taken myself on a run and done my exercise at that point.
So sometime around 10:30-11 is when I am allowed to get on my phone, even though I find that by that time, the urge is gone and I’m not that interested until I have something specific that I want to share or something specific that I want to do online rather than just wasting the time scrolling.
It’s incredible how deciding that I was going to keep my phone away so that I could have a mindful morning routine has also bred efficiency into every other aspect of my life. Because once that morning urge is gone, I’ve got other things to do. And it’s amazing how connecting to source, connecting to self, and connecting to someone else every single day has brought. This incredible satisfaction and peace and joy into my life.
I feel the difference. And part of it is that I enjoy the things that I’m doing every morning, that these are things that I’ve wanted to do in some cases that I just haven’t made time for. I didn’t decide to, I didn’t set it into a routine or a habit so that it happened automatically.
And I’m finding joy in all the things that I’m doing. And I’m also feeling so proud of myself. It’s like getting all these extra benefits. I’m also following through with that, I’ve created this system in a way that allows me to easily follow through with it because I thought through what worked for me, the timeframe that would work, and I’m not trying to get up too early. I kind of count backward from when my kids need to be up and give plenty of time for the transitions that they need for getting to school, waking up and getting dressed. So, I wake up at 6:30 am. I wake my kids up at 7:00 am and then we leave for school at 8:30 am, nothing is rushed. We have plenty of time.
I’m able to make breakfast and feed the chickens and enjoy chatting with my kids and sit by them while they practice the piano. That is not the most peaceful experience of my whole day, but I love that I’ve given myself time to be there. And all those moments of connection in the morning every day are breeding a sense of fulfillment and peace and joy throughout the entire rest of the day.
I said, in my podcast, episode 56, that I could die at 9:00 AM every morning and feel like I was fulfilling my purpose. And that is so true by nine o’clock in the morning by instituting a mindful morning routine. I feel like I am.
I have a touchstone for every important thing in my life. First thing in the morning, I am truly putting what matters most to me and the satisfaction and enjoyment that comes from that is incredible. So, here’s what you do.
You look at your own life, you must consider the timeframe, and if you’ve done the block scheduling, then you probably already have some sort of idea of what time works well for you to wake up. If your kids wake up consistently, I will offer that you make your wake-up time just a half-hour earlier. And I know that’s hard. I know it’s hard but guess how you get through the. You go to bed earlier and guess how you get to go to bed earlier and wake up more energized in the morning by not using your phone all the time.
And I’m sorry, but it’s just going to keep coming back to this and I’m as guilty as everyone else. But the more I learn, the more that I’m convinced that we are needing to break the chain a little bit so that we can intentionally live the lives that we want, determine what your timeframe is.
Then remember these three elements to include one connect to source through prayer meditation, a gratitude practice breathing, or just a moment of presence to connect to self through journaling, exercise, a routine or a mantra, having your tea or your coffee in peace, doing yoga, reading and number three, connect to somebody else. This looks like looking in people’s eyes and acknowledging, their humanity, you are making your kids breakfast and sitting down and enjoying it with them. Walking your dog, calling a friend, writing a letter, hugging your spouse, having some sort of real connection, real in-life connection to somebody else.
Peace and Presence
You can probably do all those things in 15 minutes and feel like you’ve set your day up for success. And again, things are still going to go wrong and you’re still going to feel frustrated sometimes. And your kids are not going to obey you better suddenly because you start having a mindful morning routine.
However, you will have more peace and presence. You will have more control and more patients. You will have more perspective and you will feel less alone. When you commit to instituting a mindful morning routine in your life.
Friends, use the worksheets, plan it out and take the challenge. One solid week of mindful morning routines, establish what it’s going to be. And I want you to give yourself a full week to try it out, put your phone away unless you’re using it for meditation. Don’t check your email for heaven’s sake. Don’t get on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. First thing in the morning, reserve those precious minutes when your brain is it’s very most rested to fill it with things that perpetuate goodness in your life.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode and the tactical practical advice that I’ve shared. Make sure you grab that PDF so that you can fill it out and start putting some of these principles to work, connecting to source, connecting to self, and connecting to someone outside of yourself. To begin your days with a little bit more intention and mindfulness.
Grown Up Summer Camp
I want to invite you if you have not yet looked up the information for the grown-up summer camp. There may still be tickets I’m recording this ahead of time. So, I’m not sure as camp is in about three weeks, three or four weeks from the air date of this episode, if there are still spots available, I would love to have you join in a camp.
All my retreats include a mindful morning routine that we do as a group, and I’ve heard. That, that rhythm that I introduced at camp ends up going home with people and they feel a little bit more capable of creating that space for themselves once they experience it. So, check out grown-up summer camp, and see if it will work for you. I would love to have you, that is livefree.creative.co/summer-camp coming up next month in New Castle, Virginia.
Conclusion
I want to just thank you again for listening to the show. If you’re a longtime listener, thank you so much for being here and supporting me. If you are a new listener, make sure that you subscribe so that you don’t miss an episode. So, you get all the goodness. These, these tips and ideas and discussions that I share every week, if you haven’t yet taken the time to write a review for the show, I would appreciate that.
So, head over to apple or iTunes hit those little three dots and leave a review, a written review of what has made an impact on your life and why you like listening. And I occasionally pick one of those and send you a little. Thank you. So, check that out, and invite this purpose and meaning into your everyday mornings.
I’m excited to hear how that goes for you, and I wish you a wonderful week. I will talk to you again soon. See you later. Bye-bye.
