As the second UK lockdown continued, I realised I was gradually increasing the number of small daily rituals I was doing. While I plan to do them for more than 30 days, they could also be taken as 30 day challenges. The idea is to just start your day feeling happier and more present as opposed to going straight into autopilot mode.
In no particular order, here they are.
1. Morning pages
I just started the book The Artist’s Way and know it is going to become one of my favourite non fiction books of all time. I’ll probably write a review at some point, but I highly recommend this book.
One of the daily exercises is to write three pages every morning as soon as you get up. It’s not supposed to necessarily be good writing. The idea is to just write — stream of consciousness writing. This in itself is like a meditation, but it’s also good to just brain dump too and release anything negative before I start the day.
2. Homemade Veggie smoothies
I’ve done this one on and off over the years but I’ve been making smoothies every day now for 10 days. Some have been awful, like the one with the raw yellow courgette that tasted so bitter I couldn’t eat it. But most of them are really good. I think the trick is to match similar coloured fruits and vegetables.
3. Dream jar
I wrote a goal or dream I’d like to see happen on individual bits of paper, put them in a box with thank you written on it and each day I pick one out and spend a few minutes visualising it.
4. Upper body strengthening with tinned food
Working out with cans of tinned food is really good. They’re the perfect weight. I simply about five different arm exercises with them and do rounds of 15 which I then repeat three times. My arms are definitely feeling stronger.
5. Dream recall
I recently did Charlie Morley’s online lucid dreaming masterclass (affiliate link) which is free. I love lucid dreaming, but have never managed to do it regularly. So, each evening I’ve been repeating:
“Tonight I remember my dreams. I have excellent dream recall.”
And then in the morning I’ll write my dreams down. The idea here is that the more dreams remember the greater your chances of having a lucid one.
Final thoughts
Five additional things might sound like a lot on top of everything else going on in the morning, but with the exception of the morning pages, all the others take no longer than around five minutes to do. In a way, I don’t think it matters what you choose to do, but having a few things you can do first thing helps to ground you in the present moment and stop you going instantly into autopilot.
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