EPISODE 4

Morning

Mornings can be tough — rushed, stressful, groggy. And they set the tone for your days. So we offer up some smart strategies for reclaiming them. We explain why your first waking moments are so influential, and offer a fleet of suggestions to help you start each day on your own empowered terms.

In this episode of The Living Experiment, we’re talking about Mornings — the challenges they present for many, and some smart strategies for redesigning them in ways that work better for you.

Pilar shares the central elements of her flexible, minimalist morning practice, and Dallas shares his mindful approach to making coffee. We explain the underappreciated power of your first waking moments, and offer a fleet of suggestions for creating healthier, more rewarding mornings — without taking on a bunch of new, time-consuming commitments.

Finally, we serve up some practical experiments to help you consciously reclaim your mornings so you can more successfully start each day on your own terms.

“Morning” Episode Highlights

  • The value of creating a morning practice in a way that develops self-efficacy and gets your day off to a positive start
  • How exposing yourself to your smartphone (or any mass media) first thing in the morning stresses you out, makes you vulnerable to unhealthy impulses, and robs you of your best ideas
  • Pilar’s low-key morning routine, and the value of rightsizing your daily commitment
  • How Dallas uses a conscious coffee-making ritual to build some reflective centering time into his days
  • The importance of savoring and noticing your practice experience — vs. “just doing it”
  • How taking control of your morning sets up a successful day
  • Think you are too busy for a morning practice?
  • Dealing with barriers to establishing your morning ritual
  • Good reasons to make your bed every morning
  • Dallas’s morning routine
  • Feeling resistance, and doing it anyway — plus, the value of noticing how you are NOT doing it
  • Claiming “you time” as a form of self-respect and self-preservation
  • The art of moving purposefully into a restful state
  • Permission to do it your way

Take a minute or two in the morning and slowly, carefully, mindfully and systematically make your bed well. Take three breaths when you’re done, then go on with your day.

Consider doing a one- to three-minute practice every morning for a week. Make a check-off sheet for each day that you can put on your refrigerator or some other prominent place in your home. Include a line next to each day to write down what got in the way if you didn’t do your practice. At the end of the week, notice the patterns that arose.

Share the Love!

Each week, we offer you a few life-shifting experiments to try on your own. We’d love to hear how they turn out, and what insights they provoke! Connect with The Living Experiment  on Facebook and share your stories with us there.

Resources

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