A gentle 6 a.m. morning routine 🌞 in the English Countryside

After starting my nomadic journey in big cities, I decided it was time to switch things up and move into the quiet English countryside. And here for the first time in a while, I've noticed myself falling into a consistent daily morning routine that makes me feel so content and at peace. I really wanted to share it with you guys because I'm finally learning how to take things slow and how to start my mornings with the most equanimous version of myself. I'll tell you more about how I got here and the family I'm staying with in my next video, but in the meantime, here's a preview of the farmhouse and this is the shepherd's hut I've been sleeping in. I've been waking up usually naturally around 6am or if not, I'll have an alarm set for 6.15am. The first thing I do when I get up is go into the cozy little washroom and my favorite thing about this room is the little cute window that just pops right open so I can start my morning brushing my teeth while looking outside at nature and listening to the beautiful bird sounds. It's funny, you never really think about how first thing when you get up to brush your teeth, you're staring at a mirror. It's nice to just wake up and look outside and not be focused on your own image. My skincare routine these mornings have been ultra simple. I usually just don't do anything or the most I'll do is splash my face with some cold water. I haven't really been using much of any product and my skin's just been feeling very balanced so it's been interesting seeing the simplification of my life in all areas. After brushing up, I use one of the little cushions or a blanket to put on the floor and I start my morning Vipassana meditation. I've been really good at maintaining an hour every morning so I'm very proud of myself. I've been using insight timer to give me a nice little starting and ending gong sound instead of a beep beep alarm clock and I love it. Prior to doing this 10-day meditation course, I could not even maintain meditating five minutes a day and then coming out of it, I can just sit and meditate for a whole hour every morning like a piece of cake. It still blows my mind when I think about it. Everybody, it's a beautiful gorgeous day and the chickens are out so let's go say good morning to them. Oh look at them, looking all cute and such. Say hi. I've always dreamed of having chickens so this is Horace. I'm sorry Horace, didn't mean to scare you there. Houdini and Henrietta. That's not food. Now we gotta go say hi to Dexter. I love starting my day with a warm cup of tea just to give the belly a big old hug. I'm having a mint tea today. There are so many different types of mint here, I didn't even realize that there were so many mint species. The one that I will be using today is the chocolate mint and it just has this really sharp freshness to it, kind of like a spearmint. So delicious. I'm gonna mix it with some dandelion honey that Heidi's made and the combo is just absolutely delectable. These days I've also started carving out time in the morning to practice music because living with a family where everyone loves to sing and plays an instrument has really reignited my appreciation for music. I used to take piano lessons as a kid but it felt way more like a chore than enjoyment but now before everyone wakes up I've been really loving spending some time on the bench playing old songs and learning new ones and thanks to the lovely sponsor of today's video, Skillshare. I also found a huge variety of music related classes on their online learning community including a jazz piano class which is something I've always wanted to learn but never knew where to start. Cute. Another thing I've been learning on Skillshare is singing. I found a really good singing course on here that I would 10 out of 10 recommend and the part that I really like is they're all broken down to like little chunks that are like a few minutes long so you like whiz past these sections really quickly. They're just so well organized. If you'd also like to explore your creativity, the first 1,000 viewers who sign up through the link in the description will get one month free trial of Skillshare so please let me know what classes you decide to take and if you have any good recommendations, leave them down below. Good morning. Thank you. Do you think marmite and jam would be good? I used to do that when I was younger. Really? Yeah, a little bit. I'm gonna try it. It's almost like sweet and sour kind of mixture. I wouldn't do it again but it wasn't like terrible. Horrendous. It wasn't disgusting. Actually, maybe I will do it again just to confirm. Sometimes you need to try things a few times. After having breakfast and those hours of pure enjoyment, I hop into work. I turn off airplane mode, turn my signal back on so I can check any messages I have for the day. I also really like changing work locations as I'm changing a type of task just to keep things interesting. When your body starts to get tired or your brain gets frustrated, remember to also take a break and no, scrolling on your phone does not count. Go outside, just stare at the sky or find a weird exercise that you can do. I have no idea how people do these things. And if you're hungry, why not go forage for a little snack? So sweet. And on mornings where I'm doing work that I don't need any wi-fi, I'll come to the little fold-down table in the shepherd's hut and it's actually a super great way to stay very focused when I'm doing editing or work like that. And I'll probably just replicate that in the future by turning off my wi-fi signal if I really need to But also remember that as wonderful as routines are, we shouldn't get too attached to them. Our lives are constantly changing so be flexible, be open, be willing to say yes to a spontaneous morning swim and always listen to your body, to your heart, what feels right and be like water. I love you all very very much and make sure to subscribe so I can see you next week. It feels so much warmer already. It does. Oh you look so cute. I don't want to go. I'm not going. I'm not going home. This is awesome.