The Morning Ritual That Brings Me Hope Everyday
These days I experience a wide range of feelings throughout the day. Dualities of gratitude and scarcity. I’m grateful for having enough food to eat but I feel a sense of scarcity when the grocery store doesn’t have the bread that I need. And then there are the emotional highs and lows from laughing with a good friend over the phone to checking the news in despair. The emotional contradictions and swings are exhausting and it takes a dedicated effort to not be overwhelmed. Luckily, I have a morning ritual that significantly increases the likelihood that I will be able to see the beauty, gratitude, hope, and joy around me.
I have always been slow to rise when waking up in the morning. When setting an alarm, I used to push the snooze until the alarm just turned off. I don’t really use an alarm anymore and when I wake up it’s still a very slow process… It takes me awhile to transition out of the dream world and orient myself for the day. Sometimes my dreams are so convincing that I have to talk them out to remind myself that they didn’t really happen. I’ve even spent the better part of a day being mad at Trevor for something he did in my dream, but didn’t really do in real life… true story.
So when my eyes are ready to see, I reach over and grab my journal and my pen so I can write. I start by writing down my dreams. I write as much detail as I can and I focus on the feelings that I experienced in my dreams. Then, I think of links to events in my life where I’m feeling similar emotions. Sometimes I get clues about feelings that I haven’t yet realized are surfacing and sometimes I know exactly why I dreamed about a certain feeling. It’s such a cathartic process to make these emotional connections between subconscious and conscious feelings. It really helps raise my emotional self awareness on a daily basis.
After my dreams, I free write anything else that’s on my mind. Then, I write a gratitude list. I write 10 things that I’m grateful for and why I’m grateful for them. Some days it’s more difficult than others to find gratitude, but I always make sure it’s genuine. The seemingly little things sometimes produce some of the most unexpected gratitude. One morning I was struggling to come up with a 10th item for my list, I finally wrote down my slipper socks (yep, for real) and when I wrote why I’m grateful for them it became clear that I freakin’ love these things and they bring me so much comfort… they’re pretty much perfect; soft, cozy, the right size, the right height, I love the colors, I love that I can wash them, I love that they keep my cold feet warm. Ha, I had never had such a love affair with socks before and it felt so good to realize how much pleasure I was getting out of something so simple!
The truly amazing thing is that I was able to shift my perspective from struggling to overflowing with gratitude for one of life’s simple pleasures. This is the mindset that turns everyday moments into magic. Sometimes our days are overwhelming… gratitude puts everything into perspective. Join me in adding a morning gratitude practice daily for 30 days and experience how your perspective shifts. Please feel free to email me at hello@centeringboards.com with any questions and/or to talk about your experience with gratitude journaling!
Well wishes,
Sara