MORNING HABITS THAT I SWEAR BY / YOGIC MORNING ROUTINE

Best rebel things you can do in the modern world. Yeah, own your mornings, own your life. What do you mean you don't have your tea? I'll wait, just get it, okay? No rush. Hi friends, my name is Molly, welcome here, thank you for joining me for this video. And today I wanted to talk about morning routine. I know, I know, it's super basic, we hear them all the time. It is known that mornings do impact your whole day on a major scale, and it spreads beyond that. So today I wanted to share some yogic habits that I'm implementing that really impact my day and that I love, and I can't imagine starting my day without them. I promise you, even with one of the habits that I'm going to list, if you're going to do it on a consistent basis, you will see changes and you will benefit majorly. Just spreading, spreading as much as I can here. Again, I know, morning routines, it's a cliche at that point, but it is a cliche for a reason, because morning impacts your life so, so much. So today I'm going to share what habits will help you build up this kind of domino effect in your life, and hopefully you can start implementing one or two of them if you're not implementing them yet, or just get re-inspired to continue. Let's just get, like, the most basic ones out of the way that impact my morning in a major way, and it is movement. Yes, movement, I know. It's the hardest thing to do in the morning for me personally, just because it's very hard to wake up my body before my mind wakes up. It's honestly like a whole mental struggle to get onto the mat, but I started this habit of doing movement in the mornings, even if it's a little bit, and honestly it's such a beautiful place because your mind is not yet so loud and active. Your body is just doing all the talking, and this is really, really wonderful space where you can observe how you're feeling today, and there's something really satisfying once you get onto the mat. You just open up for the first time after a long sleep. It's very powerful to get to connect with yourself on this kind of level in the morning. You will have this kind of satisfaction that you set in the morning and cultivate it through your body throughout your day. Once you start your day with, like, regular work tasks, whatever, your body will remember that you did this wonderful movement in the morning. It doesn't have to be anything intense. Sometimes I have intense, sweaty, playful practices. Sometimes it's very gentle, very intuitive, just whatever my body feels like. Sometimes I have a class, or sometimes it's just sound salutations. The next habit is to put away some time to experience your breath. Yes, I know, sounds basic, right? But this is why it's so impactful, because this is literally the basis of your life, and putting away some time to pay attention to it and to work with it is really impactful. You're not just a passive passenger in this kind of breath carriage. You are the one who takes the wheel, and you control the breath that goes through you. This is something that every living human experiences, yet we do not pay attention to it enough, and we don't learn how to do it properly. There's a reason why divers, or people who do cold plunges, do breath work before getting into those extreme environments, because it really helps you control your mind. It really helps you to connect all the aspects of body and mind. You can imagine your day as one of those extreme situations where you don't know what you're gonna face, and having that knowledge of how to work with your breath can really prepare you and make you mentally strong to face whatever comes your way. There's something really beautiful about allowing yourself every day to experience that power that goes through you, that basically pumps your whole body every moment of your life, and just experience it, pay attention to it, appreciate it, and use it to rejuvenate you. That prana energy that goes through you is something really precious you can do in the morning, to tune in with this basic act that seems so insignificant, but yet monumental in your life. Everything is based on your breath, and I know pranayama can be a little bit intimidating, just because where do you start? And I would recommend a 10-day challenge that is on youtube. I tried it before, when I first started with pranayama, and it's really easy. You just turn it on in the morning, and you do it with the instructor there, and it really helps you to start off your practice, and see how you can do it on your own after. So if you are intimidated by it, you can definitely try it out. The next one is meditation. Don't click away yet. It's important, okay? I get it. Meditation. And it's hard, to be fair. To be fair, it's way easier to ignore it. But those 10-15 minutes a day can really impact the way you think. It can really build that shield of resistance to constant thoughts that will be going through you, and instead of floating away with them, and letting them drag you one direction or the other, all of those anxious or happy or whatever thoughts, instead of being victim to them, meditation can teach you to be present and allow those thoughts not to attack you and drag you into emotions. It is really hard to meditate. I've been working on it for a couple of years now, and only I think recently I've started to really enjoy it. And understanding that without it, I feel very uncomfortable throughout the day. It definitely takes commitment, this habit, and this is why I encourage you to just start implementing it into your morning, because your mind is not yet too awake to make it harder for yourself. And it's a great way to just make your mind more powerful than your thoughts, make your mind more powerful than the circumstances around you. And to just close off this point, I know meditation is hard, because you have to commit to it before it commits to you. This is how habits that are worth it work. You have to prove that you are worthy to receive the benefits of these habits, and you can only prove it by committing to them before they commit to you. Next one is my favorite, because it's really easy. It's gratitude journaling. It's really easy, because it literally takes less than two minutes. So basically, I just write down three things every morning that I'm grateful for. Way harder to do when you're in the sort of bad mood in the morning. So I recently was really mad, and I was like, what do I have to be grateful for? Think! I was like, okay, I did my skincare, I'm grateful for all the creams and skincare that I get to put on my face to look like a glazed donut. And suddenly, the calm came over me. Wow, I really have a good skincare routine. And I brought my attention to it. You program yourself for that kind of mindset every morning, and that teaches you to find creative solutions, to see the bigger picture, to learn from the situations that might be perceived just purely negative. This is honestly an awesome habit that reprograms your brain, and it's so easy to do. The best part about it is that you feel it right away, because you do bring your attention to those positive aspects of your life. And it's kind of fun, because you just look around and realize that there's actually a lot of things to be grateful for. So try it out. Honestly, I love it. It's the easiest thing on this list. It seems even silly sometimes, but these little drops of gratitude fill you up with time. And who knows, maybe with time it will start flowing out of you by making the world more grateful. Okay, that's a bit grand, but trust me, try it out for a month and see how that starts to alter your brain chemistry. The next one is honestly a game changer in my mornings, because it's something that we have to learn to do nowadays, and it is to start our mornings without the phones. And this is something that took a lot of effort, and that was absolutely worth it. So I just try to leave my phone out of the way. Starting your day with a phone can impact your brain chemistry in a negative kind of way, where you get those hits of dopamine, hits of information, the fast, you know, get me feel something vibes. And this will make it way harder for you to concentrate on a lot of things further in the day. It took me a while to get out of this habit, but it makes such a big difference in your personal peace. You can be confronted with something that you're not ready for that day, and you can you give up like this whole control of how you start your day to something outside of you. This will kind of be with you for the rest of your day, and by doing this habit every day, you know, your frequency goes on to the level of what the social media wants it to go on to, or the whatever you're indulging in the mornings. A couple of things that helped me to get rid of this habit is to decide what I'm doing in the morning. So maybe it's one of the previous habits that you have to commit to in the morning, so before you pick up your phone or anything, you go there and you do that. And I like to keep phone just somewhere far away and have like a list of things that I need to do. I have to do my movement, I have to do the breath thing, and I do my meditation. I feel really, really satisfied when I start my morning and do all of those habits, and then I move on to the start of my day and completely forget about my phone. And maybe I remember about it by the noon, and it's really satisfying to just pick it up. And I just feel like it has so much less power over me where I pick it up on the time that's later in the day, and I had my morning to myself, and this phone does not provide me the same satisfaction as it would if I would pick it up earlier in the morning and try to fill up the void in me with its presence. Best rebel things you can do in the modern world. Yeah, own your mornings, own your life. It got really sunny. And the last one, breakfast. My favorite meal of the day. So, so good. And I don't mean like whatever breakfast, even though that does sometimes happen. I mean like a really nice breakfast. More like nice, like you tried to give yourself a nice breakfast that you would actually enjoy. Especially tastes really, really good if you had a little flow beforehand, and your body is gonna be like, give me, give me, give me food, and you're gonna feed it, and it's gonna feel really grateful, and there's like this whole self-love circle going on. But yeah, I don't mean like whatever breakfast, even though that does happen sometimes. I mean like really good, nice breakfast that you will enjoy. And this is not just only good to kind of express that self-love and care for yourself, and give yourself that nourishment. It's also good to help yourself have a better flow throughout the day. Because once you kind of take care of those fundamental, fundamental needs of, you know, taking care of your stomach and having something to eat, you can start working on your projects without distraction, and use that morning concentration energy to its potential without distractions. I could make a whole video on breakfast, because you can prep them overnight, you make it easier for yourself, you don't have to like cook in the mornings, and there's so many fun ways to like prepare it, so you don't have to do anything in the morning, but you feel like you're eating like a whole, like a hotel breakfast thing, that's really... Most of the time in my gratitude journal I do put my breakfast in, because I love breakfasts that I make for myself, so you can be creative with it, and it doesn't have to be labor-intensive in the morning. If something I don't like cooking in the morning, just because, you know, like I said, my concentration energy, I want to put it into projects that I'm passionate about. It was getting really hot out there, so I'm taking you with me into the shade. And yeah, those are pretty much the things that I wanted to, that I think are worth mentioning in this video. I know it might seem really basic, but this is the only way you can make complex things worth of admiration, to know how to implement those basics. I understand also like it's not gonna happen overnight, that you're gonna do all of those things right away in the morning. It's kind of overwhelming morning routine, if you do it all together. But if you are not doing any maybe of these, you can start with one, with two, with three, and as necessity of those things in your life grows, the more important they are to you, and the more time you make for them in the morning. So it's just taking one day at a time, one habit at a time, and just seeing what serves you best right now. So yeah, it's honestly your personal journey, and I'm here to suggest what could benefit you in being you, and walking your path. So try it out, let me know how it goes, let me know what you're already implementing. And yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you in the comments. Bye!