How Morning Rituals Made Me Appreciate Life

And also become a mentally healthy and grateful person

“Ask yourself a simple question: “How do I wake up every morning?” By that, I mean, what do those first few moments of consciousness feel like?” ― Shawn Wells, The Energy Formula

What is a Morning Ritual?

→ A Morning Ritual is something(s) that you do every day in the morning after waking up.

I am more appreciative of life since I started having consistent morning rituals. Before I share my present morning rituals, let me tell you how my mornings used to look earlier. I want to do this to make 2 points:

1. To show how eerily similar your mornings are (A calculated guess)
2. To display the drastic difference

The Ghastly Old Mornings

Wake up: It doesn’t matter whether by alarm or not; pick up the phone beside my bed, swipe up, and see which app has notifications. (Usually, it is WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Email)

Scroll through Social Media: See what apps have notifications. How many people liked, retweeted, or left comments on my content. It was followed by checking analytics on all platforms to measure the growth. If I saw any decrease in followers, then indeed the mood gets spoiled, and it reflects the rest of the day (happened most of the days).

Get up: Grumpy, sulking, irritated, and forcing myself to work/study. Taking with me the negativity I put in my head earlier by scrolling through my phone.

I think you get the point.

This negativity will keep on slipping through the cracks because you can't control people. You, as an artist, can only put your work out in the world and then forget about it.

The goal is to love the process not the numbers.

I was tired of feeling this way, drained of positive life force when tackling other aspects of my day. So I decided to take charge, change things, and take control of not starting my day with negativity.

The New Pleasant Mornings

Before going to bed the previous night, I turn off the internet, put my phone on, do not disturb, and put it 10 feet away from my bed over at the study table.

Wake up: Usually to alarm unless it is a holiday. Get up from the bed, open the window and let in some fresh air. I follow this by using the bathroom and shower.

After Shower: Write in my two journals, a 5-Minute Journal, and a Morning Pages journal.

Meditation: Ranging between 15–45 minutes. A cup of coffee follows Meditation.

I have not touched my phone yet. You can also clearly see the radical difference in the morning routines.

Only after doing all this do I pick up my phone and let the nerd gods (I think I can say this because I am one of them) do their magic.

In the next section, I explain how you can create a morning ritual and how it helped me and how it can help you.

Here’s How You Can Create Your Morning Ritual

Derived from here.

Do not allow external stimuli early on.

• It means not checking your phone first thing in the morning.
• Allowing your mind to swim in your thoughts

Not checking my phone first thing in the morning keeps me away from the negativity social media can bring. It also allows me to deal with my innermost thoughts and conflicts. I can address my thoughts and emotions better by not letting in what the world has to say.

I am having better mental health because I do not allow negativity in my head while starting my day.

Fixing a few waking-up habits

You can meditate, water your plants, have a coffee in peace, etc. It entirely depends on you. It would be best to look for things you do in the morning that rejuvenate the entire day.

My rejuvenation comes from taking a shower first thing in the morning (well, not first, but you get my point), followed by journaling, meditation, and having a cup of coffee in peace.

I have a semblance of a structure in my life because of my few waking-up habits. It makes me have a better sense of control over life.

Journaling

There are a plethora of ways to journal. That said, it is entirely dependent on the individual in regards to what they want to journal. Furthermore, it is not limited to a written journal; it can be a drawing journal or an audio journal, for that matter.

I maintain two journals. These both are inspired by a video from Tim Ferriss.

• 5-Minute Journal
• Morning Pages

5 — Minute Journal

It consists of two parts:

Before the day starts — I ask myself 3 questions every day
a) What is it I am grateful for?
b) What will make today great?
c) Daily Affirmations. I am…

After the day finishes — I ask myself 2 questions here every day
a) What are the amazing things that happened today?
b) What could I have done to make today better?

Morning Pages

This way of journaling is all about the Idea / Emotional Vomit.

Put whatever is going on in your head on the paper regardless of it making any sense. Put unfiltered thoughts on the paper so that you don’t overthink them.

I owe the gratefulness I have towards life to this journaling method. I reinforce my beliefs in things I am grateful for and what are the things that I am looking forward to doing that day. I end the day by jotting down “how could I have made that day better”.

Meditation

As there are multiple ways to journal, so are numerous ways for meditation. You can use white noise in the background, sit in one place and concentrate on something. It can be your breath or an object. The options are limitless. The goal is to acknowledge your thoughts by not forcing them to be accepted or rejected.

I use the app Headspace. It has guided meditation and I find it helpful. Without guidance, I can go astray pretty fast. I have better control over my anxiety and patience because of meditation.

To Put It All Together

Negativity shouldn't have any place in your life, especially in the mornings when you are about to start your day. To have appreciative, grateful life, have a morning ritual that serves your needs for positivity. It can look like this:

• Do not allow external stimuli early on
• Fixing a few waking-up habits
• Journaling
• Meditation

Take control of how you start your day — don't let the start of the day control you. — Jason Zook

Thank you for reading.

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Hi, I am Tarun Gupta, and I write about many things, but I enjoy writing poetry, life lessons, and fiction the most. You can find all my posts here in this index.