Healthy Chicks

How do you start your day? Take a moment and think about that for a few minutes. Do you rush straight to the coffee pot? Do you check your email on your phone before you even get out of bed? Do you go for a run? Do you hit “snooze” 10 times on your alarm clock?

While I’ve had a pretty solid morning ritual down in the past, I’m not going to lie I haven’t been keeping up with it of late. If I’m being perfectly honest, these past few weeks, I’ve been starting my day with work. And not inner work like meditation or writing, but work work.

There’s nothing wrong with loving the work you do and wanting to jump right into it first thing in the a.m., but if you don’t take the time for your own work (you know, that inner soul work), you’re setting yourself up for disaster. After all, how you begin your day is most likely how the rest of your day is going to pan out.

So if you start by checking your bajillion unread emails (been there!) or rushing to the coffee pot running on empty (totally been there too!), you’re likely going to have an overwhelming, exhausting day. If you hit snooze a dozen times on your alarm clock (you guessed it, been there too!) you’re likely going to have a procrastinating-running-late kind of a day.

Last week, I set an intention for myself to amp up my self care. And a big part of that is starting your day with something for you, something really juicy that lights up your soul and makes you feel good. Because just as you can set your day up for disaster, you can also set it up for something really beautiful.

Yesterday, I began my day by lighting one of my favorite candles and taking a moment for Heather Waxman’s “Raise Your Vibration” meditation from her  Soul Sessions album (which you can snag here!) I then took out my journal to release my thoughts, over a cup of yummy lemon verbena rose petal tea. How do you think the rest of my day went? Pretty happy + zen to say the least.

Today I am starting off with a little writing, by far one of my greatest passions that makes me feel me. The beauty of it is that you can start your morning however your little heart desires as long as it’s something for yourself.

Yes, you do have time for yourself…you just need to create that time. Work can wait. Emails can wait. People can wait. Favors can wait. You can say “no” to those things that suck your time and energy, and you can say “yes” more often to yourself.

Ask yourself, what is 15, 20, 30 minutes of your morning going to cost you? Then ask yourself an even deeper question, what is is costing you not to take these 15, 20, 30 minutes to yourself?

I’m telling you: don’t let your “to dos” get the best of you; make that time for yourself each morning and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Oh, and be patient with yourself too; this type of transition is not easy and can take some time for adjustment but it’s well worth it on the other side.

How do you start your day? Do you have a morning ritual? What’s one thing you could do each morning for yourself?