Dear First name / friend
Since being off for a few days last week, my sleep/wake cycle has shifted towards later nights and later mornings. Getting up for work later as a result means I've (temporarily) lost the space for a morning routine.
I wanted to share with you a structure for a morning routine I heard recently on a podcast with monk-turned-meditation teacher, Jay Shetty. He describes using an acronym called ‘TIME’:
Thankfulness (a gratitude practice)
Intention (setting an intention for your day)
Meditation (breathing, visualisation and mantra/affirmation)
Exercise.
Another one I've used previously is SAVERS:
Stillness (i.e. breathing or meditation)
Affirmation
Visualisation (use the power of your mind to mentally rehearse your day e.g. picture yourself happy, successful, confident, showing up and being a good friend or colleague)
Exercise
Reading
Scribing (i.e. journalling, but SAVERS sounds better than SAVERJ).
When you have a morning routine, you really notice it when it's not there. There's this pocket of time that is just for you, and much like having a nutritious breakfast, it means you've already got goodness under your belt regardless of what does or doesn't happen throughout the rest of your day. It's the equivalent of "putting your best foot forward" or "waking up on the right side of the bed" or any number of idiomatic metaphors for a good start to your day.
What does your current morning routine look like? Is there one, even if it's just a cup of tea to savour before the madness of the day begins?
On days where I've left very little time for more than getting up, getting dressed and getting out, I've made a cup of tea. That means there's 30 seconds where I can slow down and breathe. On those days, I made my cup of tea, opened my balcony door and drank the first few sips looking out towards the sea. (It sounds poetic, but in reality it was, at best, 20-30 seconds of standing in a cold doorway, slightly self-conscious of the neighbours that might spot me, polar bear-esque as I was in my fluffy white dressing gown, trying not to think about possible lurking spiders.) Okay, maybe now I've made it sound distinctly less enjoyable, but for those 20 seconds I felt calm; I felt in control. And that's what the morning routine is all about.
Mindful moment: So, as Jay Shetty asks, what's the one thing you can do today for you? Before the chaos and the madness of the day descends, what can you do, even if just for 30 seconds, that is yours? Can you wake up and think of something to be grateful for? Can you practise a few deep breaths as the teabag slowly steeps in the water? The exercise and the reading and the writing are all wonderful extras. If nothing else, savour the ‘S’ of SAVERS: Stillness, whatever that means for you.
