My Practices: the morning variety
When I refer to my practices, or my sadhana, I’m referring to my daily routines. The practices that I intentionally choose to do with my time so that I am living consciously, meeting my own needs and taking the best care of myself that I can. Prioritizing yourself is obviously important, we’ve all heard the airlines quip to put your own oxygen mask on first, but beginning to shift into a lifestyle that accomodates this approach isn’t easy in our culture in today’s world. There just isn’t enough time. In a perfect world I would have a long morning to accomplish all of my goals, and I would operate on my own time frame. But that’s not the case for most modern day homemakers. We all have obligations that can interfere with “our perfect morning” or our ideal “evening wind down”. But here are a few of my non-negotiables for my morning routine and a bit of the background as to why they are so important in my life.
1- SLEEP: Your morning routine starts the evening before. I was always the kinda girl that would choose my outfit the night before. I am not as sharp first thing in the morning, so having a few things prepped ahead of time makes it so much easier. The most important thing to prep is YOU, by getting sufficient sleep. I like to leave my phone outside the bedroom and get into bed with enough time so that I have ample sleep. For me that’s 8-10 hours (I know, I’m essentially a bear).
2-Intentional first moments: While it’s tempting to look at your phone first thing in the morning, TRY please please try to take at least a few long slow deep breaths and be intentional with the quality of your thoughts first thing before you look at the screen. If you’re into gratitude, rattle off a few things to set the tone for your day. If you are more into manifesting, think about how you want your day to feel and imagine and call in moments that feel good to you.
3-Prep the body: Habit stacking 101: You probably have some sort of morning bathroom routine… brush teeth and hair, wash face etc. Maybe take it a step farther and add another habit on to one you already have. In Ayurveda it’s important to prime the sense organs for the day (think mouth, eyes, ears, and nose). After brushing my teeth I scrape my tongue. There are so many benefits to this practice, but my favorite is that you scrape off the ama, or toxins that have built up on your tongue over night- think that coating or film. If you scrape that off you are not only cleaning your mouth, but allowing your tongue to be able to taste all that yummy food coming your way more clearly later. After washing my face I use some delish Ayurvedic products- Paavani is my go to skin care brand. They have toner, and facial serums for your dosha. I tend to have redness on my skin so I prefer the pitta pacifying oils. If I had all the hours in the day and no obligations I would netipot- an ancient ayurvedic tool to rinse the sinuses, and follow it with some nasya oil to moisten the nasal passageways and prepare them for all that breathing and filtering they’ll be doing all day. And bigger picture- you take things in through your senses. How you interpret the quality of your day, all happens through the senses. So why wouldn’t you want these to be clean, functioning and well taken care of?
4- Warm first sip: What to ingest first thing? HOT WATER. This has been my go to and it’s a non-negotiable. First things first as one of my fav teachers said, “your body is essentially a really fancy and complicated tube.” Your skin is the outside, and your digestive tract from mouth to.. ya know, your bum, is the inside of the tube. The inside is very warm and moist so why would we ever start with cold water? Essentially just clogging the inner tube like nasty old pipes! Some quick perks: You can add whatever you need to your warm water- lemon, ACV, herbs, ghee… and it will be like a miracle drug for your morning bowel movement- an easy way to track your digestion..more potty talk in a future post bahaha.
5-Connect with yourself: The final non-negotiable is connecting to myself. As soon as you walk out of your lair you know you will be bombarded with everyone else’s needs, the world, the news, even the weather. You’ll get pulled in a million directions, and if you don’t start your day connecting to yourself in some way, you may end up getting pulled in directions that aren’t where you want to be headed. Listen, I know time is of the essence. You tell me how much time you have, and we can prioritize. Maybe you’re a meditator. Maybe you like to journal. Maybe you need movement or exercise of some kind, or maybe it’s just getting outside into nature- even if it’s just a walk around the block (RMW ala Tinx anyone?) There are so many ways to connect with and prioritIze yourself first thing in the am. The challenge is how much of a priority are you to yourself? *so rude of me, I know.
**FULL DISCLAIMER: When I was teaching back in Philly my mornings were brutal. Out the door by 7:00-7:08, 7:15 am if I was really pushing it. My priority was 1- look presentable (pshh my Taurus rising would never- I had to look good. This is what usually made me late if I wasn’t feeling my outfit and had to start over) and 2- feed myself (deep internalized fear of starvation.. ancestral lineage work much?!) So that’s what got done. Eventually I started incorporating some stretching and meditation. Journaling if I had time, but I could always journal when my students were at a special. I made it work, and as I learned more how to prioritize myself and value my own time more I became better at making the container what it needed to be.
My morning routine du jour: Today I get to wake up without an alarm. When my body naturally rouses me (or Carl licking my face). I take awhile to fully wake up so I try to do some intentional breathing and think about my intentions for the day whilst lounging (languishing??) in bed- but also I’M HUMAN and I do check my phone. I DO NOT sleep with it in my room though and make sure it’s on airplane mode at night- maybe baby steps there- but progress!
I make my hot water and get my eyes to the sun no matter how cold it is while the water is heating up. Yes I literally step outside onto my front porch to face the sun rise for 2-10 minutes. I do some form of meditation, breath work and or journaling, maybe pull a tarot card or two. Check in with my plan and goals for the day as I sip my hot water (today with chai ghee- noticing a lot of dryness so an easy way to remediate is more ghee) and I try to tackle one hard thing that isn’t hard, but I keep putting off for whatever reason. So no matter what happens next I know I’ve accomplished something in my day- life hack baby.
Then I consider what kind of movement I’m up for. I used to definitely have issues with feeling like I never did enough exercise- to the point that my body was so physically exhausted I didn’t have the energy for anything besides make dinner go to sleep. So now I decide what feels good. If I have lots of energy- I try to find when Taryn Toomey is teaching The Class, or hope on the bike. If I’m somewhere between too depleted and lots of energy I’ll jump on the Bellicon trampoline and do some band or kettle bell work. If not-yoga or pilates are my jam. Always feel better mentally and physically after those classes.
Then finally I feed myself. I usually don’t fit this within the proper “kapha” time of day, but maybe that’s okay! I notice my appetite so I’m able to decide what I eat by what I need- not what I’ve planned to eat. I also try to eat, and just eat. Not eat and do emails, or eat and be on a call. I’ve truly grown to learn my body digests better when that’s it’s only responsibility at the time. I don’t get to do it all the time, and let’s be honest dinner in front of the tv is.. so satisfying for a 90’s kid. But I try to make it a priority when I can.
So.. while not a perfect Ayurvedic routine per se, it’s still a vast improvement from when I used to eat cereal (yes in a bowl and spoon with milk) while racing up 1-95 slamming a vanilla draft latte (La Colombe anyone?). But.. we do our best with what we got and where we are! …And keep our eyes on the horizon of how we actually want it to be!
