Starting The Day In A Healing Way
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Summary: Waking at 5:30 AM despite being a night owl, the author embraced a morning routine influenced by Hal Elrod’s ‘Miracle Morning’. Initially including SAVERS (Silence, Affirmations, Visualisation, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing), the author tailored it to include: meditation, spiritual reading, soulful writing to God, and prayer. Completing the ritual with self-hugging and Reiki principles, it centres the author’s day spiritually.
Now that I’ve chatted through my new bedtime routine, I guess I need to talk about what happens at the other end of the day… My morning routine! I’ve actually been getting up for a morning routine at 5.30am (or thereabouts!) for probably two years now.
Now, I think it’s important to make clear right from the start that I am NOT a morning person. Well, not a natural morning person, anyway! In all of my iterations of my ideal day, getting out of bed never happens before 10am! So how did I, the archetypal night owl, persuade myself to end up getting up daily at 5.30am…?
Hal Elrod’s ‘Miracle Morning’
A friend first introduced me to this book two years ago. I was pretty frustrated with my life at that point, feeling I wasn’t really in charge of my life or had any real direction. When she handed me this book, I devoured it in a couple of days. To this day, I still recommend it to friends!
The book outlines a model for your morning that you can adapt to any timescale you have available (six minutes to two or more hours!). It is based around six key areas that you focus on each morning, which Hal Elrod calls the ‘SAVERS’:
On top of detailing what to include for each section, Hal gives tips on how to effectively get up in the morning (great for us night owls!) and how to maximise the productivity and profitability of this routine and therefore the rest of your day.
The Miracle Morning was a really great way for me to start the practice of a morning routine and set me up well for finding what works for me from there. However, I did struggle with the idea of exercise that early in the morning – I was barely conscious! I found, as the months went on, my ‘SAVERS’ became ‘SARS’ (yikes!!). My frustration levels built with my lack of discipline. So I looked for inspiration elsewhere.
Adapting The Miracle Morning
I still really liked the Silence (aka meditation), Affirmations, Reading and Scribing (aka journalling) parts of the Miracle Morning but I was having a couple of issues with them. Firstly, being a busy wife and mum, I was frustrated by the time limit imposed on me by the demands of my life. For example, I would get halfway through an amazing chapter in the inspirational book I was reading then realise it was time to get my daughter up for school. Secondly, as time went on and I read more self-help material, I realised that there were other things that I also wanted to include in my morning routine or do in its place that I couldn’t accommodate in the SAVERS routine. So I branched out.
What Is No Longer In My Morning Routine
The first thing I knew had to go was the exercise. I have never enjoyed starting my days with exercise. My body just doesn’t coordinate well first thing in the morning. On top of that, I have high insulin sensitivity and high glucose sensitivity before 10am, with both increasing by a factor of two. Chucking exercise into that mix just turns my blood sugar levels into a disaster for the rest of the morning. So exercise was out.
I also found the visualisation quite boring and didn’t ever really get into that. I tried to improve my technique and by reading both ‘Creative Visualization’ by Shakti Gawain and ‘Vivid Visualisation’ by John Freeman. Despite their stellar Amazon reviews, it just didn’t stick with me. So, reluctantly, visualisations didn’t make my final list. (However, I may return to this. I have just discovered that the highly successful Tony Robbins uses visualisations as part of his morning routine so there must be something in it. I think there is great power in visualisations, if only I can learn how to harness them.).
Affirmations were something else that I removed from my morning routine. I enjoy using affirmations and feel they really help me to shift my mentality around whatever I focus my affirmations on. However, I found that I use them most consistently when I attach them to the action of brushing my teeth every morning and evening. I have stuck my affirmations to my bedroom mirror and repeat them every time I brush!
My Spiritual Hour
I now call my routine my spiritual hour because that’s where I want to place my emphasis during the start of my day. I want the focus to be on my spirituality and practices that support that. I feel this aligns well with my healing and reflects Dr Kelly Turner’s findings about the importance of spiritual practices in a healing journey.
Meditation – 20 Minutes
Writing
The next thing I do is a form of writing. I did feel inspired by Hal Elrod’s suggestion to write and knew that I wanted to keep some form of writing in my spiritual hour. I just didn’t like the whole ‘write about what’s on my mind’ thing. I looked around for ideas to replace this.
I have heard really great things about something called ‘The Morning Pages’, which is outlined in Julia Cameron’s book ‘The Artist’s Way’. Whilst it is outlined as a way to inspire creativity in your life, I know that people use the morning pages for all kinds of levels of exploration. The idea is that you write whatever comes into your mind – yes, every word! – for three pages. It is supposed to bring clarity and inspiration and all host of other amazing things. Unfortunately, it fell flat with me. It just seemed a bit pointless. I did it for a couple of months but didn’t feel I gained anything from it at all. It just didn’t call to this one’s soul!
The writing practice I eventually landed on was Janet Conner’s ‘Writing Down Your Soul’. I love this book!! It gave me a brilliant tool to access my spirituality in a way that felt progressive and fulfilling. Janet Conner outlines a routine to surround and hold the writing practice. She also generously gives a whole series of questions you can seek to ask if you are stuck for your own.
Janet suggests that, as part of the preparation for writing, you could read something that resonates with you. The book I chose for this part is Sarah Ban Breathnach’s ‘Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced And Joyful Life’. This book is truly beautiful. It consists of 365 passages, one for each day of the year. I think you are supposed to work through each day in turn throughout the year but, as I bought it half-way through the year, I decided to pick a page at random each day. Most days, whichever page I land on, it seems to resonate deeply with something in me that is stirring that day.
So, every morning, that is my writing practice. After I meditate, I read ‘Simple Abundance’ and then I write to God. I tell Him (Her?) how I’m feeling and what is going on for me, then I listen for His answers. They always come. This writing practice reminds me of what Neale Donald Walsch did in his ‘Conversations with God’. I hope to benefit from even a fraction of the wisdom that he gained from his experience!
Prayer
After writing, I usually pray briefly. I like to say thanks for all the good in my life and then I select a prayer from ‘Uplifting Prayers to light your way’ by Sonia Chouquette. This is another book that I really appreciate. Again, I select a page at random. More often than not, there is a great synchronicity with the prayer that I find. It often compliments what I have read in ‘Simple Abundance’ and also often resonates with me. It really makes me feel close to God as speak the words out that are presented to me. I feel at peace.
Other Quick Practices
Mirror Exercise: I learnt this on the desert retreat I went on last year. I grab a mirror and, whilst looking directly into my own eyes, I say ‘I see you. I love you. You are beautiful. I am proud of you.’ It is a really affirming process that, whilst feeling awkward at the start, builds over time. It is a powerful practice to sit with yourself in that feeling.
Hugging: I finish my spiritual hour by giving myself a good hug. I discussed in this post about the importance of hugging and how self-hugging can be as effective as hugging someone else. Every morning, I regulate myself and my body with this quick practice.
Reiki Principles: As I walk out of the room I do my spiritual practice in, I turn off the light. I have placed by the light switch the Reiki principles to repeat. These are:
So that’s it! That’s my morning routine.
Of course, there are days I don’t do it. There are also times when I step away from this practice and do something else. For example, that happened when I decided to focus last month on my forgiveness practice. I spent my spiritual hour each morning doing that. But I always return to this. It is my home.
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Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.
