#20 – Your Daily Glow Up Starts Here: 3 Essentials for a Vibrant Morning Routine

In this episode, Mel and Dez explore the transformative power of morning rituals, emphasizing the importance of incorporating practices for your spirit, soul, and body. They discuss how morning routines can reduce decision fatigue, enhance emotional health, and nourish the body, ultimately setting a positive tone for the day ahead. The conversation highlights practical tips for creating sustainable morning practices that align with individual needs and lifestyles.

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Transcript

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Hey friends, welcome to this week's episode of the Road Back Podcast. And this week we are talking about morning routines or as I like to call them, morning rituals. I changed my own terminology around morning routines to rituals a few years ago because I realized that the word ritual for me carried a sense of sacred and I really wanted to infuse the start of my day, the first things I did in the day with a sacred, almost devotional feel. And so for me, I like calling them rituals, but whether you call them morning routines, morning rituals, morning habits, that's what we're gonna discuss today. I love the intentionality of even the language around it because I think a routine can feel supportive and it also can feel like something you have to do and another way that you might like fail or get off track and then have some shame about not doing the routine as you had intentioned. But if you think of it as we're just discussing some of our own process and offering some options and ways to think about creating a ritual or some really sacred intentional moments. And if you could just kind of distill it to that, really, let go of some things to find the things that are really important for you at the beginning of the year, hopefully this will be supportive to you. I know that around this time of the year, it sort of still feels like I'm in a funk coming off the holidays, you know, kiddos home and college hasn't started yet. We're just, there's bags of fudge and cookies still on the counter. I'm like, when will this, I'll just keep it. Who knows? So if that's where you find yourself too, I just want you to know like starting to be intentional at any time of the really important, but yeah, welcome. Yeah, welcome. And we thought that January would be a great time to talk about morning routines, because it is a month when people are generally revisiting habits, revisiting goals, revisiting vision. I found it has been helpful for me to revisit my morning routine, sometimes my evening routines or rituals at regular intervals, because sometimes the things that really served me in one season of life, my season shifts and, taking a moment to reevaluate and say, this still bringing the same amount of life, joy, results that I want? it's a great opportunity to check in. So we wanted to make this episode a combination of really practical skills. We're gonna share some of the things that we have learned. And as always, with all of our episodes, we invite you to choose what works for you, pick some, drop some others, and hopefully it'll bring some insights for you as you consider your days and how you start them. I love what you shared because as you were talking about, occasionally checking in to see how are things serving you? Is this still creating that sacred intention? Right? Is this still a ritual that I want to process? I tend to change my ritual depending on the season. So I have like a winter go to and I have a spring, I have a summer and As you were sharing that, thought, yeah, I do this probably seasonally and even being able to, as the listener, noticing where you're at, connect to yourself, understand what season you're in, understand what your capacity is, how much time do you have in the morning? Like, where are you at? Are you nursing small kids? Are you out to work early? What is your season? So I think this is a great way to even think seasonally or intermittently. We can try to check in see what's working for you and what's not working for you. Yeah, so good. Let's talk about some of the benefits of morning routines, even from a scientific or research standpoint. I know one thing that I read was talking about how when we start our day with intention, especially as we transition out of that sleep to wake state and then we transition into the day, when we're intentional about how we start the day, It sets us on a track to be less reactive to everything else. When we have a plan, when we have even just some basic guidelines of here's some significant things and we'll get into this a little bit later, but I know for me, one of the things I really like to incorporate into my morning ritual, regardless of how much time I have or even what the season is, is I love incorporating something for my spiritual life, my spirit, something for my soul or my mental and emotional health and something for my body. So whether it be movement or intentional nourishment, that kind of thing. When you start with that intention, helps you go into the day with a certain energy and focus. And I just think when you begin as you mean to go on, it is so helpful. It doesn't mean things aren't gonna, you're not gonna get curve balls that come flying through your day from time to time. I feel like it happens to the best of us, especially if you're a mom and, you know, kids suddenly ends up sick or home or something like that. There's just those unexpected twists and turns. But when I start intentionally, I feel more powerful. I feel less like a victim to my life. I feel less powerless. I feel more like I am taking my agency and personal power and actually telling my day how it's going to go or telling myself how to show up in the day rather than just hoping on a wish and a wing and a prayer that it's going to work. Yeah, I think even from a nervous system standpoint, if you think about reaction versus intention, intention can sort of create the framework to sort of stay in that window of tolerance where you're more grounded, more connected, you're more aware of your own internal state. Like you're saying, like you feel powerful. You feel like you can see yourself maybe in a quite different way. You can see your day. You can see what's happening in your day. Instead of everything happening to you, I'm seeing, here comes the shit show or whatever. Like, you know, it's, there's a, it's a huge difference. So, being intentional by creating a ritual, by removing some decisions we have to make kind of can help our nervous system stay in that window even longer. Getting out of your window is not the problem. It's to be the ability to kind of return back quickly.

Whereas sometimes I'll get up and I know I'm in flight, at 7: 6:32

50am and I'm like, Oh dear God, you know, here we go. Yeah. and I barely hit my feet have barely hit the floor. Totally, totally. So I love that. I love that. You touched on something too that was more of the research as well, which is when you start your day with intention and a habit or routine, you reduce the amount of decision fatigue that you sometimes run into. And decision fatigue can be defined as the mental exhaustion that comes from having to make too many choices. And I, for one, can definitely attest to the times when I've had to make too many little decisions such as, what am I gonna wear? And am I going to work out today or am I not going to work out today? Am I going to eat breakfast or am I gonna skip? What am I gonna eat for breakfast? What about this? What about that? Am I gonna roll over and go back to sleep or am I gonna get up at the time I said I was going to? And so just those micro decisions add up over time. And I find that when I have good... habits and routines locked into place. And it's something that I don't need to think about. I'm just going to do it. It frees up my mental capacity to put energy into the decisions that I really do need to be making on a day-to-day basis. I don't want to spend all my time thinking about what I'm going to eat for breakfast. What I was thinking of was like, how many practical things can we start to streamline for ourselves? I'll get stuck and I'll eat a breakfast for a couple months. I do. And I'm fine with it because I know that I'm always going to have that. I'll know that it's in the fridge. I'm not going to feel frantic that if it's not there, it sort of becomes this thing that you can count on, right? That will matter, ladies. That adds up. Those many mini things that things that you can count on because there's so much in life that we cannot control. And there's a lot to it, some people doing, you know, different types of exercise, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I do this, Tuesday, Thursday, it's no brainer. They don't even have to figure out, am I going to do that or not do that? It's a natural, they've streamlined that decision. They've cut that decision out. It's not impacting or taking a withdrawal from all the many millions of decisions we make as a woman, as a mother, because we're not even making decisions only for us. You're making decisions for the kids based on their nervous systems. You're just rolling with it. The more you can think about this and get into streamlining it for yourself and alleviating decisions is a great support. That's been one of the biggest positive benefits and side effects for me is eliminating the unnecessary decisions that suck so much of my energy. And I have heard it said before that we all have a certain amount of mental capacity any given day to make decisions. So if you're using 50 % of your mental capacity to decide what you're wearing and whether you're going to eat breakfast or whether you're going to work out, then potentially there's other more important life decisions that you don't have full capacity for because of the extra that you're having to spend on the side. I think I remember reading one time or hearing about Steve Jobs. He wore the same outfit every single day. And I don't even know if it was the same color. I'm sure there's people who would be able to fill in the details, but he took away the, am I going to wear every day to work decision? And I mean, the man's running, was running, multi-billion dollar company because he freed up his brain to focus on the things that mattered because he took that decision of what am I going to wear every day out of the equation. Obviously I don't think us as women are probably going to go to quite that extreme. I like the clothes in my wardrobe, but it's that whole. Where can you reduce friction? Yes. Well, what I like about this thought is that one of my goals at the end of the day is to have emotional capacity to connect with my kids, right? With my husband. So if I can understand my goal, these types of decisions that I make between 5.30 in the morning and 9 a.m. before I start work, they matter. They're doing something for me that I actually want. They're supporting me in that way. I'm supporting myself. And so for me personally, that fuels clarification around can I get rid of? How can I streamline? How can I get really intentional in the morning? Because it'll actually get me what I want the most, which is more capacity at the end of the day. uh way you worded how am I supporting myself? I see mornings as probably the prime time for personal investment; the habits that will bring longstanding dividends and returns are usually the things that I'm doing first thing. Yeah. So if you're somebody that's listening and you've never had any sort of morning ritual or routine, then I can't recommend it enough. And if it's just even a time for you to reset, maybe you have a great one. And if so, you'll understand and be agreeing with a lot of what we're saying because it's gonna resonate with you. But even if it's a time for you to check in and just have this as your little friendly reminder, just to do a little stock take, what's working, what might you wanna drop, we are gonna throw out some practical ideas. We are just gonna dive into the spirit soul body side of things and talk about some of the things that have worked for us. But before we do that, Dez, are there any specific times or seasons where you had a morning routine that just made a huge difference? I can think of one where I stumbled onto something in a morning routine and I didn't even know how much of a benefit it would be until afterwards. That's actually how I discovered something that was really important to me. But do you have any stories like that? Yeah, just a quick one. when you ask that question I could see myself and I could feel again in my body because it was such an embodied transformation for me. It was a time when some stray cats had kittens in the backyard. And so my go to routine was sitting with the kittens every morning and having my coffee. And I think this mattered because What I really spent the time doing is noticing with my five senses really grounding in my body, the beauty of this sweet little family of kittens and their personalities and that we were sharing my backyard, which is one of my favorite places and the joy of the beauty of spring. And kind of created for me this sacredness and this intentionality where it was an environment where I connected deeply with myself, with God, with nature. And that's like kind of the trifecta of impact for me that really helps nourish my day and brings sacredness to my life. And I'm like, my life is sacred. I have made intentional connection with myself, with God, with those around me, with nature. That would probably be a very fun happenstance special season that marked me. That would have been a big happy place for me, because you and I are both cat lovers. I would have been in sheer delight. That would have been so fun. it's interesting because the similarity between what I'm going to share and what you're sharing is sometimes there's been an element of surprise and even, I would even say being open potentially experiences or seasons of things in your mornings or in your daily rituals that were unexpected. it was before I was even married and I had a friend at the church I was at at the time, she asked me if I wanted to go walking in the morning and she lived in neighborhood over from me. She was a young mom and had kids and stuff like that. So we had to get up early and walk. And so I think we got up about five o'clock and it was maybe the first time in my life that I'd ever really had to get up that early. I was living in a warm location at the time and the sun would come up quite early. And so we used to just go for walks in the morning and we'd pray and we'd talk. And I just remember recognizing in that season, I would have never understood how a 5 a.m. get up and moving my body. In this season, it was actually a beautiful time of connection. And she was somebody who could kind of speak into my life, but we both encouraged each other. It was so delightful to me. I would say this as the case for a morning routine, if you've never had one. I was so energized by the positive resources that I got from that. It was a spiritual resource. It was physical because I was moving my body. I was starting my day with intention that I found that the rest of the day, the habits and choices I made because I was in such an elevated and positive frame of mind, I didn't want to eat junk food because I'd just done exercise first thing. I didn't want to make poor health choices after I'd just made the sacrifice of getting up early and intentionally moving my body. For me, I know that a morning routine is really positive for me if I notice that it's affecting the rest of the decisions that I'm making and I'm making more positive, healthy choices as a result of the way I'm starting my day. Would you agree with that as well, Dez? I love that, because that's like a marker to clarify, like, this is working if, noticing the effects. Yeah, I loved it. You know, I just deeply resonated I think even connecting with a human in the morning that builds a lot of relational safety. And I'm like, I'm so loved. Like that will impact my day deeply. Absolutely. And I think that's part of the theme of this as well, is there's a lot of permission to try things out. I have accidentally stumbled onto things that were really life-giving for me. That particular season, walking with a friend was one of them. And I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't tried. So good. Yeah, just the gifts in the day, like the little kitties being in your backyard. That wasn't a forever season, but it was like this little gift from heaven for you. It's just, oh, yes. Well, if we're talking about, kind of dividing thoughts or ways to think about creating a morning ritual, first and foremost for both of us is really deeply important is our spirit. And so I just wanted to ask, Mel, what is a spiritual routine or ritual that you return to again and again? Mmm. Some sort of meditation is my 100 % non-negotiable. When I say meditation, that can take on various forms. I love to write. I would often say that journaling would be something as well, but that maybe would put even more into a soul mental health type practice. But meditating on either a truth or principle or even the visualizing of something that I'm believing for a dream, that kind of thing. Sometimes it might be focusing on a scripture or something and pondering, something contemplative, where I am focused inward on something or thinking of something that's going to elevate my spiritual state, help remind me of spiritual reality, spiritual truths, connecting me to a sense of the divine. I notice, if I can connect to a sense of God or a sense of unconditional love, a sense of thankfulness or peace or joy, if I can connect to that on a spiritual level, it affects my nervous system on a physical level. 100%. And so if I can connect to that, I notice that it will flow out into my day; so figuring out what is gonna nourish me in any given season, I almost always will go back to some sort of meditation. Other times it's maybe been some silence or a form of prayer. It might be reading a sacred text; it's even been worship music or some music or something that will just get me into a prayerful, devotional state of mind. I can say that it has looked different in different seasons. And when I was a young mom, I didn't have the same time ah as I do now, but now it is one of my biggest priorities and I try to give myself, and this is because my kids are little bit older and can get themselves ready I will get up early in order to make this happen. I usually try to get up early before the rest of the family because it makes such a positive impact for me. But I try to give myself at least 30 to 60 minutes for this because that's what I've personally come to discover that I need. I need that alone time. I could tell when you were sharing that you've actually practiced or engaged in these rituals in a lot of different ways and it's looked so different. And that's what we really want the listener to hear is that it can look and be different every year, every three months, every decade, whatever it is. And based on your season and timeline, that's for sure, you know, what it looked like when I had small kids and what it is now. So there's obviously no shame in any of that. I was thinking specifically about what that, connection to the soul and to the spirit and to the divine and to something higher, unconditional love, how it really does affect the emotions, what you believe about your life, how you approach your life, how you approach the people in your life. By being really intentional and creating a routine that helps us connect to that, it transforms our world, it transforms our life. Sometimes I just spend time on my walk because, you know, something I've done is walk and I walk and pray a lot. That's probably my favorite way for my brain to do it. If my body can get moving, sometimes it'll bring me a lot of clarity. Sometimes it just looks like I'm walking and chatting with Jesus or with Papa. I use the language of trying on, sometimes I'm on my walk and my spiritual practice would be is what would I feel and think and believe about my day if I truly felt in my body that just Papa delighted in me, that he was proud of me, that he enjoyed me. And so sometimes I'll just walk a mile like that that's my spiritual practice of like feeling what that would be like, feeling like he's not upset with me about this or that, just that he's with me and he, he wants to be open and talk to me about it. So I do a lot of spiritual practices like that. I came across this recently of like, how would you live if you believed that all your prayers were answered? So I love that you just said that. If he delighted, I mean, that's another one you could try. I'm like, if all my prayers were answered, how would I be living right now? Yeah, I think it's transformed the way I pray for my kids because what would it feel like? What would I believe? What emotions would I have if my children had the same deep relational connection to God and God was delighting over them and he was with them and he was for them and they had everything that they needed because they had this access to God? That's kind of how I pray for my kids. I'll just name them and I'll just feel it and feel it in my body and believe it and I just have the outcome or the fruit of that belief inside of me and that's my embodied spiritual practice. You I think you're touching on something so powerful too, because you're really tapping into faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Hebrew says the evidence of things not seen. So it's like you're taking what you even know to be a spiritual truth, which is God is for your kids. Everything that they need has actually been provided for them. it's like you're partnering with a spiritual reality and through your prayer, even releasing that into their lives simply through your faith and being a conduit of faith. I just think, I think, yes, that's amazing. as my spiritual practice. One of the biggest fruits is less codependency and less fear and less shame-filled parenting. Because I not only know it here that God is with my kids, like wherever they are and whatever that they're processing and whatever they're going through, whether it be illness or a test or a struggle or you know, anything, not just logic-ing. I've brought it into my being, my actual, belief that my body has, okay, this is how I breathe, this is how I feel in my life when my kids are with God. I'm not perfect at this, but there's less need for me to try to control what's happening with my kids, their emotional experience, because there's more trust. I can feel that they're safe already, and it's... helped my co-dependent heart so much. I just, you know, when I work with clients, I'm like, tell them like, do this, try this out, see how it lands. I think that that's been the biggest impact. And a fruit of it is I'm enjoying my kids right where they're at so much more because I'm not constantly, yes, I'm not constantly think, oh, we just got, they gotta get through this. we've got to figure this out. We got to find the answer. Where are they gonna go to school? What's their next step, right? I'm less, externally oriented and I can feel like, you know what, this moment is a great moment for me to parent this kid. I have connection with this human and they're right where they're at and it's a great place to be because God's there. I truly feel it and I believe it more than ever. And so that has been a great, fruit for me is I'm enjoying the moment more. I don't know about you, but my prayer used to feel really desperate and like I was trying to change a bunch of stuff that was going on. I mean, I feel a little shameful to say that, but it's true. And so, okay. I'm not trying to change everything all the time. And that gives me a huge break, first of all, off my emotional and mental load. And it helps me just enjoy them. Enjoy this current moment, even if it's hard, even if it's a challenging moment, I would say. anyways, this. anxiety levels have dropped which therefore means you're less controlling. And also you're a lot more present and you're able to be in the present moment as opposed to trying to get your kids somewhere because, I mean, and we've picked up a lot of stuff through religion of like, you just need to get someplace. And I need to make sure my kids have the right relationship with God and my goodness, are they gonna be okay? That's really probably its own conversation, because I have a lot of perspectives on that that have really freed me from being afraid about my children's eternity, but that's probably another conversation for another time, but it is true. I love what you're saying and I think that's an incredibly powerful insight. And I love that you've incorporated it into your morning routine because it sounds like it's really become a part of your just natural rhythm now, which is beautiful. Absolutely. Do you have anything that you'd like to share that you do just from an emotional or mental health standpoint? If we've discussed spiritual things, now let's talk the mental health and soul emotion realm. What do you have that you love from that in your day to day? I tend to incorporate many things in my walk. As you could tell, like my spiritual practices come in during my walk time. I think if I could distill it down, I feel like I'm getting connected to God. I feel like I'm getting connected to myself. I guess one of the outcomes moving and from praying and from just connecting to myself is I can hear my inner voice. I can sort of, I kind of know what I believe about my life, I know what I believe about a thing, I know what I believe about my kids, I know what I believe about this current day, my present situation. And that is a key element for my emotional health. I'm able to have a perspective in real time, like emotions are happening, the life is happening. I'm able to have that bird's eye view and sort of see myself usually in nature. That's why nature helps me so much. It sort of gives me perspective of who I am. And then I start to hear my voice. I start to hear what I believe. There's revelations from God, there's revelations from the Holy Spirit. I kind of create this sense of self. And I think that's one of the bigger things. And I think people can do this in journaling. I personally don't have the time, because I like to move my body for at least 60 minutes on a walk. I mean, I did for decades, but I don't do that anymore. But I think you can get to that state and place in lots of different ways. Some people do it in yoga, they can find that, in certain stretches and different things. How about you, sweetie? What is the practice for your emotional health? I love affirmations. This you could very much tie into spiritual and that's something you're gonna see through this. This is all interrelated. Nothing is completely separated into its own compartment. Everything influences everything else. I have a really strong belief in the power of our words and the power of the words we speak to ourselves. That feels really important to me, so affirmations are something that I... love to do on a regular basis. I wish I could say I do it every day. I don't do them every day, but I try to do them pretty regularly. With affirmations, what feels important to me is to speak things that feel like my heart and my mind can believe them. Some people say affirmations and they don't believe them. So they'll be like, I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionaire. And I'm like, okay, that's wonderful. But if right now you're making,$20,000 a year, there's a disconnect between what your brain actually is believing and what you're wanting. If you're somebody who wants to learn how to do them, I like to say things like, Every day I'm growing in my capacity to receive and handle wealth or receive and steward wealth. Every day in every way I am expanding my capacity for generosity and thankfulness and prosperity or something like that. It might be like every day I'm growing in my capacity. to be present with my family. I like to say things that I am growing in this or I am developing this because it doesn't mean that I have to be somewhere already, if you're wanting to grow your business, you could be like, I am learning to attract and draw the right people and the right business opportunities into my path. I open my eyes and my heart to be aware of what is available to me. Here's one that I came across recently is the more I do what I love, the more money I make. m that was, So things like that, like things that, they need to feel true to me. And so I've touched on some, some financial ones because that's a lot of the work I do. So I help people come up with affirmations, but I remember one that just dropped into my heart one day, and this was a money one too. You can take it if you want it. I remember just hearing this, cause Dez was talking about how revelations will sometimes just drop in. I just remember hearing this one day, And it was my prosperity blesses the earth. And I just thought, yes. So for me, when I say that, I feel it in my body because I have such strong conviction that money in my hands, this is another one, money in my hands is a force for good. I believe that in my core. Affirmations for me are something where I'm wanting to declare truth over my life and see it increase in whatever way. So I'm stewarding what I have now and I'm seeing it blessed. Your area of life is you're really wanting to see improvement in your health. So you say, every day in every way, I am learning to take care of my health and my body. I'm growing in my ability to nourish myself. I am making healthy choices. I'm learning to build on the healthy habits I already have. Because sometimes I think where we break down with affirmations can be when we try, when it's too unrealistic and we struggle to connect the here and now to where we're going. What do you want to add to that, Dez? You were nodding your head with what I was saying. I'm sure you've got some jewels to add to this as well. First of all, I think because you do this in such an embodied way, I can feel that you believe what you're saying. That's it. Because our knower, it's a good BS barometer. It's like, uh exactly. But our knower is good because it's in the same way it can confirm, I am in process. I am learning, I am expanding, I am growing, I am transforming, I am receiving, I am loved. any... I'm growing. Yes, yes. mean, we can say that, because maybe right now you feel like, well, I've got a thimble sized ability to be able to receive love. But it's like, no, but I can grow in that. There's a capacity for me to grow. Maybe in a month's time, I'm going to be like a tablespoon of my capacity to grow. And so I think it honors the process. And I think it's really important that whatever we speak over ourselves honors the process. I think this is so powerful because we've alluded to it even earlier in the podcast what we believe matters. Everything follows it, our emotions, our decisions, our conversations, how we respond to things, our nervous system, everything follows these core beliefs we have, which is why when we talk about the spiritual aspect of a morning routine, or we talk about the emotional aspect or even the physical, it's really founded in on our belief system. And I love that you do this. And I think this is such a big part of, why clients get so much transformation with you is because you've done that work; things come into alignment with your belief now because you've practiced it. And then I would just even encourage, people in whatever they're doing as their routine – find evidence, you know, see what it feels like in your body. Notice that you're lighter or clearer of thought and what you believe about yourself or about your future or your business or the way God feels about you or I mean, fill it in. the future of your family. If worst comes to worst and you don't know where to start, you can always find some scripture. Find some scripture references. If you have a faith based background, look in the Bible, even just Google it. What are some promises of God that I can claim for my life? And if need be, if the actual direct scripture doesn't speak to you exactly, take the essence of what it's saying and write it into a phrase or group of phrases that will empower you or that speaks to your faith. The biggest thing that out of everything we're saying to do today is we don't want habits for the sake of habits. We don't want a checklist for the sake of a checklist. We want whatever you pick up or whatever you let go of to be intentional because what it is doing is actually setting you up for success in your day. It's like, think of it as holistic morning rituals. We want your whole person to be tended to, not for you just to walk away and go, I did my checklist. Okay, now it's back to the same old, same old. I got excited about those affirmations because like you said, they resonate with me. if you're the listener and you have something that resonates with you in whatever area, maybe you're going after breakthrough in your marriage right now, what is something that you can grow about? You know, my capacity for conflict resolution is increasing. I'm doing the work and I know it will pay off. I'm investing in my relationships and I cannot help but see success. And you know, something like, I feel life on that. Just saying that, that's for somebody. Somebody's wanting to see breakthrough in their relationships this year. The Bible says life and death is in the power of the tongue. Don't ever underestimate the power of your words and what you are declaring over your life. You have authority. You've been given authority over your own body, your own physical life, your own spiritual life. But also think about where are the realms of authority that I have in my family? Like you were saying, Dez, before, your visualization and prayer, leaning into the realities of what's true for your children. What does that look like if you then start partnering with the words you're speaking and rather than being like, so and so is off the rails again and run it out. They're off on drugs or they're destroying their life. What if you went and hold on a second in my morning time, not only am I going to pray for my kids, I'm going to start speaking truth. I'm going to start declaring what I want to see happening in their life. I refuse to partner with what is looks like now because I have the creative power in my mouth and I get to declare what I want to see and I get to see it come to pass. And that's part of the reason affirmations are huge to me. Yeah, Yeah. Can we talk about gratitude too? Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, gratitude is another one. In terms of, again, a spiritual, it can be a spiritual practice, but I think taking some time to also just remember what you can be grateful for. Count your blessings can sound very cliche after a while, but I know that the seasons where I have been really intentional about just connecting, and you can do this either by writing down maybe three things every morning, five things every morning in a notebook or a journal. Or you can just sit, I've done it at times where I've just sat quietly and really just taken a moment to think of a person or a situation that I'm thankful for in my life. There's even been times that when I've struggled to connect to gratitude, sometimes I'll just pick up an object of something like my favorite blanket or if my cat comes and sits on my lap, which she likes to do. I'll just take a moment and even think, okay, what is it right now that I've got my cat purring on my lap? Actually, I can feel really thankful for that; gratitude practice can be spiritual, but it's definitely a major mood booster for me too. Do you have anything to add to that, Dez? I think that both of us have gone on the journey of really cultivating a felt feeling of gratitude in lot in our training, we discovered the beauty of resource and the meaning, like the meaning of our cats purring on our lap. Let's just do that because we both have a lot of joy of like, yeah. term might not mean something to everybody. They may not understand what you mean by that either. our brains are very good at noticing the problems or potential for problems or threat. And it's part of your nervous system detection. And that is something we really don't have to cultivate. You don't really have to think of things to get scared about or to freak out about, be anxious for in the future. I mean, we do that. Humans do that really, really well. It's part of our evolutionary skills inside of our nervous systems. What we do have to work on is finding safety. We have to kind of notice what's going well, harder, and train ourselves to notice it. So the term of resource goes hand in hand with gratitude because what does it mean that right now I have heating in my house? Like, what does that mean? It means that my kids are warm, that I'm safe enough for now I have what I need. I don't even have to think about the future, but what if I can't pay it next month, whatever. Just retrain your brain to kind of stay in that moment right now. What does it mean? It means I'm cozy. It means I have a sense of home for myself and for my family. Those things I am so deeply grateful for. So like you're saying from just cup of water, something that we take for granted. Sometimes maybe not consciously, but we are doing it because there's so many good things in our life, but our brain tends to focus on what could be going wrong. I think gratitude is this practice. It is the practice of noticing all that you have, all the goodness, all the resources that you have. And to be able to do that, to extract from a cup of water or a simple blanket or a cat purr. It's like a treasure I have. It's like I have found the ability to take such delight in my life now that it's something I couldn't live without. I don't want to live without. Like I think my level of living and the state of my life is so much richer and deeper because I'm actually dropping in to what's present like that warmth of the kitty, his fur, his heavy body, his purrs, the way he, you know, turns just to get to that right spot. There's so much relational connection. I'm like, he knows exactly that I'm going to do this where I rub him right where he wants to be rubbed, you know, right behind his neck. And that matters. That adds so much beauty and value and gratitude, I think could change the world. Like this kind of work would change the world. It would change my life more if I did this more and more, for sure I'll speak to that. But I just think in a bigger, expansive way, I think we both hold that belief that there's such a powerful, enriching way to live is to be connected to gratitude. So I love that you shared that one. Yeah, think there certain emotions that are elevated. We would say elevated emotions, they have a higher frequency and I would even say a heightened state of consciousness. And gratitude is one of them. You could say love is as well, joy, peace, any of the really positive, enthusiasm, excitement, inspiration, those are all heightened states. They're higher frequency if you think it by in comparison, say, anger, fear, depression, rage, anxiety are all lower. If you could hook electrodes up to somebody and they were in a state of depression, the actual wavelengths coming out from their brain would look different to somebody who's in a state of gratitude or joy. The actual frequency of the brain waves that are coming out of them because of those emotions, everything has a frequency. And so it's really interesting when you're in those higher frequency states, you're in a higher energetic state. And I mean, it's this whole thing. We could go down the quantum physics rabbit hole, which could be another time. That's another, yeah, another bookmark. We're bookmarking things for the future. Getting into a state of gratitude is like, it will, and I can attest to this. It will open you up to possibilities that you don't see when you're not thinking about what you're thankful for. If you're focused on everything that is wrong, where focus goes, energy flows. So when you're focused on what is going right, and even if it feels like everything is in chaos, because we've been there, the seasons where it just feels like it's one hit after another, it can feel like an personal defiance to actually choose to focus on what's good when things are really hard. But there is something incredibly powerful about looking for the good and feeling into it and letting it land in your body. And you were talking about the cat purring. I could totally relate to that. That's very real. there's always something good that you can find. And I think when we start our day, with just even a couple of minutes, like we said, it could be as simple as writing three things down. Giving your mind an opportunity to, for even a moment, to consider a different reality than maybe the one that you're feeling confronts you on a daily basis the rest of the time. I love that because the challenges you do face, they're real, they're valid, but so is all of the good things in your life. They're just as real and they're just as valid. So you're purposefully bringing three to five things in or noticing those things; changed our lives. life. been a total game changer. There's a few of the morning routines, rituals have been total game changers. Gratitude has been one of them. And you've got to remember we live in a world and a media system that thrives on fear and negativity. And so being intentional about what we put into our eyes, what we listen to, what we hear, what we feed ourselves with does make a difference. What you put in will come out. Yeah, Just even noticing and going, I'm going to do it differently. Maybe I don't scroll the news the first thing in the morning. We're talking about the soul or our mental health. That can be another thing maybe I don't allow myself to turn on my phone first thing. And I, I incorporate some of these practices first and allow myself my phone a little bit later. Cause if we're not careful, we'll go on autopilot. Next thing know, you've been doom scrolling and you didn't mean to. And 20 minutes went by and you're like, whoops, whoops, reorient. Yeah, very relatable. I still do it sometimes, but I mean, I feel better when I don't. Yeah, same. So good. Okay, let's talk about the body. Dez, tell me what's a physical practice or practices that really make you feel alive in the mornings? What do you love? I think I can guess what you're gonna say, but. Yes. Well, I am a walker, but I was also a runner. This has changed over the years. I remember my mom taking us and she'd be like, sit here, we'd go on a walk and we'd be in the stroller. And so we'd always see my mom walk or run. So I think I've definitely gotten this from my mom. Shout out to my mom. This has been such a, a pillar of how I've been in my life. And it's so important to me to walk because of course, like I said, I incorporate my spiritual practices, a lot of my emotional practices inside of a walk, but I will literally roll out of bed and you guys, I look crazy. I'm like a crazy dresser. It's dark, no one's out. You And I'm wearing some weird outfit and I just roll on and get my shoes and socks on and I would just start moving. And it's one of the most beautiful, gentle ways. It's like, I can feel it in my body when I walk out the door and I start that movement and the cold air and winter's hitting me or whatever the environment is. I'll tell you what I'm feeling right now as I'm thinking about it. It's like a gentle rocking that wakes me up. It's like being just like cradle, you know, every step, it's just like a gentle back and forth. And that for my body and for my system and for my heart, my soul is just such an impactful thing. It just changes my whole day. I can hardly skip a day. I have to consciously be like, we're gonna rest. Wow. Wow, you love it that much. Oh, I love it. I would do it two or three times a day and when the weather's good, I do do it twice a day. Shh, don't tell anybody. I just love it so much. I'll just walk around the block between a client. I'll get the mail. Just a little bit of that body movement means a lot to me. Yeah. I'm with you on movement. I love that you walk every day. It's actually very inspirational to me. And I tend to be one of those people who likes a little bit of variety. So I tend to mix up my mornings. I've had seasons since we're talking about movement. I personally have discovered... that morning exercise is the best time of day for me to exercise. I've had seasons where I've done it in the evening or the afternoons, but morning is best for me and absolutely very first thing within an hour of me getting up, really important. But I do tend to play around with the different ideas. Is it cardio? Is it walking? Is it yoga? What I did a while back, because I had had a season where some of the movement had dropped off. I didn't have the same practice quite as locked in. And so this is just what I wanna share with somebody if they're listening and they're thinking, man, I used to work out, but I've kind of fallen off the wagon, or maybe I never really have had a good movement practice. Start with really simple goals. When I picked up movement again, I just told myself it's gonna be 10 minutes a day. All you have to do is move for 10 minutes a day, because I had noticed I was really sporadic. Sometimes I'd work out and then sometimes I wouldn't for a week and I was all over the place. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna set the bar low so I can feel like I'm succeeding. And I'm just gonna make sure I move 10 minutes a day. And if that's a run or if it's a walk or if it's walking the dogs with my kids, if it's a bike ride, if it's yoga, if it's stretching before bed, I am not gonna make it be something that's unattainable, I'm gonna make it attainable. And that is absolutely the theme that whatever you pick up with your morning ritual is make sure it's attainable and make sure it's something that you can feel like you can get an easy win with. And so I started low. I set the bar low. I said, okay, 10 minutes a day, I can do this. I just knock out, 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day. And then obviously over time, I just went, okay, well, that's not enough. And so I built it up until it was at least 30 minutes a day. Some days maybe I would only have time for 20 minutes or 25 minutes, we say that to say there's a lot of permission here to custom tailor to what you want. But out of everything that I do, movement for me is a non-negotiable. If I couldn't do the rest of my morning routine, the movement and meditation for me would be the two that I absolutely couldn't let go of. So we're throwing out lots of things, yeah. I notice a really significant impact to my mental health. If I move versus don't move, and I think I hear you saying the same even with your walking every day, it's a non-negotiable to you. Absolutely. I have added in so many different things. Like besides a walk, was on a kick with biking. I loved biking, Pilates, strength training. Everyone will have their different love. The thing I never get rid of is a walk. So I'll add in other things. That's just my non-negotiable Mm-hmm. that 10 minutes. I'm like, yeah, that is so doable. everyone's got 10 minutes, even if you just walk to the mailbox or whatever, think that walking is great, but walking without connection to God or self, it just is a walk. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Walking is so important to me because it means more than just that. Meditation and walk or meditation and movement are non-negotiables. I would agree. Those are absolutely some of the things that have the biggest impact. So true. There's also other things physically, obviously we're talking about movement, but what are the other practices that you have? I heard you touch on it earlier about your breakfast. Do want to just circle back to that again, just share some of the things you do that are physical or affect your physical wellbeing, but maybe aren't directly exercise related. Well, in general, I'm predominantly cooking all the food. My kids are cooking a little bit more. My husband doesn't cause he gets home very late at night, but I eat a lot of leftovers too. Like I think of myself as this is something that impacts me because we're eating it all the time. I know this sounds a little bit cheesy, but we both really love to cook. I think that just intentionally making food with love Mm. feels like such a nourishing thing that I'm doing, because I'm warming up leftovers for lunch today like a loving intention. While I'm working every day, I just warm up lunch. That's a very simple thing that I do for myself. I know it's like, it's not that big. Even if it's one little piece of chicken, I at least have something leftover, I don't have to think about it. And then in the evening, I really invest, I really show up and create a nourishing meal. I don't know if that answers your question exactly, but I think having love in food. and enjoying your food. Yeah. true. And what I was actually thinking about is when you were talking about how you might just eat eggs or something over a period of time to take away all the decisions, and I think for breakfast, especially if you're somebody who has to get to work, nourishing yourself is really important. But also, like you just said, Dez, you don't set the bar high for breakfast. You're not cooking a three course breakfast. You're doing something that's gonna nourish you and it's gonna fuel you. But in alignment with your capacity for the season you're in right now. Monday to Friday, I almost always do some sort of smoothie or a healthy granola and yogurt or something, but nothing that's really preparation intensive. It needs to be really easy. But there's also other things that you can do that can nourish your body. It can just be drinking water. I like drinking warm lemon water with a little bit of salt. That could be really great to rehydrate because we're usually a little bit dehydrated when we wake up in the morning. I noticed that if anything that I'm doing in the morning, because my kids are still in school and they're getting ready in the mornings, I try to pair things up. If I'm making a juice, I'm like doing that and helping the kids get their lunches packed and out the door at the same time. So how can I combine what I'm doing to be more efficient? And yeah, it works for me now. I revisit it on a somewhat regular basis, but I definitely have some of my tried and trues and it sounds like you do as well, which is good. Yeah, any last words of encouragement or anything you wanna leave the listener with? What if there's somebody who's going, okay, I've got some ideas, but I'm not quite sure how to implement or what if I don't have a lot of time? Is there anything that you wanna share with them? If you don't have a lot of time, how can you maybe incorporate something intentional if it's 10 minutes that you do have? What is the intentional thing that would be very nourishing to you? Is it intentional 10 minutes of movement? Is it intentional 10 minutes of prayer or meditation? Is it an intentional grounded practice that you can do for your mental health, for your nervous system? My biggest takeaway is just bringing in that intentional ritual or the sacredness of this is your life. These are your 10 minutes. Creating that agency of like, get to choose and curate these 10 minutes of my life. What do I want to fill with them? I think that kind of intention and empowered thinking can really reset the day and can even drop in and focus. Oftentimes I do very grounding practices in between clients in the same way. And it's 15 minute moment, that I'm purposely re-grounding. And so I actually think if you have 10 minutes, it's not too little. I agree. I agree. Don't underestimate how those 10 minutes will add up over the course of a month or over course of two months. Sometimes I used to get disheartened in the seasons when I was very busy and when I was a young mom, especially when life was so busy, I didn't feel like I had much time for self care or morning rituals of any sort. I wanna encourage you, if you are listening and you think I literally do only have 10 minutes, exactly what Dez was saying about being intentional. This is a question that I like to ask myself sometimes when I'm feeling stuck of like, what do I do? I've only got 10 minutes. Ask yourself this question. What is the one thing that if I did it would have the biggest positive impact on my life? And I guarantee if you sit with that question for a minute, your heart will give you an answer. Trust it because when there's times that you don't have that, that big window of like the luxury of two hours, like you did maybe when you were single and had a cruisy job. The seasons looks different and that's okay. And there's grace for that. And that time will add up if you just give it to yourself, it might feel like it's in really small increments, but it is very vital. I would say don't let it drop just because you think, I don't have an hour, so. It's not going to be worth it. No, it will be worth it. You'd be amazed at what can add up with the little steps of consistency. I probably have asked myself that question in different ways. And what I love is that I could remember multiple different responses. Like I need rest right now. I'm going to intentionally rest for 10 minutes. I'm going to intentionally, drink my coffee and really taste it. I'm going to stretch right now. Cause my body needs a stretch for 10 minutes. I just love it because it's gives, a lot of variation of what you might need and that creates such a beautiful connection to yourself. Yeah, like we said, the ideal outcome of any morning habit, routine, ritual is that it sets you up to feel good. It sets up your nervous system. It sets up your physical, mental, spiritual health to be able to approach the rest of your day and the rest of your life with a feeling of empowerment and feeling good about your life. There you have it, friends. We're glad you're listening with us and we'd love to hear anything that you are incorporating, anything that you're trying out new. share that with us. right. Bye. you next week.