Today is about one thing that could make a huge difference in your life – with relationships, health, creativity, and especially our mental health.
It’s all about creating your own personalized daily routine!
Sure, some of the best parts of my life have happened in the random moments when I was up all night howling at the moon and running wild. But over time, I discovered that when I created my personalized daily routine, I had more freedom and the capacity to tolerate those spontaneous, random moments with more grace, instead of them stressing me out.
Our minds and bodies like rhythm and routine. It’s why going on vacation may mess up our digestive schedule, or we have trouble sleeping in a new house. Or why here in Alaska, when the amount of daylight changes so quickly and so drastically, people’s moods and energy levels are really impacted. Ask me how I know…
The overall idea of a daily routine is that it bookends your day in a way to best support you. The morning routine sets the tone and aligns us for the day. The evening routine helps us reflect meaningfully and in a way that better serves us. Our mid-day routine helps us ground, be present, and reconnect.
Another way to see the morning routine is that we get a do-over everyday – a new opportunity to reboot and do things differently and create a whole new expereince of our life.
I’ve been leaning into my own morning ritual lately so that I can start the day off fresh, inspired, and grounded. I’m re-doing all those mornings when I slept in too late and felt sluggish all day, or when I stayed up stressing and worrying. Now, my NEW mornings are infused with freakin’ magic!
Mornings are energetically in alignment with the beginnings of our lives, and with every other new day we can harness that, create a new experience, and oust the regrets.
Take some time to think about how you start your days. If your current routine is no longer serving you, or if you have been resisting the idea of one until now… that’s ok! You can totally do it differently.
Your routine can also impact how you relate to others. My husband and I at one point had NO routine at all and always bickered about every little thing. After working through that with our therapist, we realized the need to have a clear routine (even if it’s not as rigid as most would prefer), because that allowed us to avoid conflicts about what was going to happen when everyday.
The Ayurvedic practice of dinacharya, or “law of nature,” consists of daily self-care routines that give us a structure for giving ourselves more balance in our lives and establishing a type of integration of the physical, mental, and emotional bodies we have. It’s also based on the philosophy that our biological clock is related to the patterns of the sun and moon and of nature in general, like how flowers open in the morning and close at night.
This flow of energies can vary person to person and they show up in our physical and mental constitutions as well, called doshas. More on that in the full podcast… but the important thing to note is that when we create a routine that works for us and we stick to it, the benefits of dinacharya can be experienced almost immediately and can serve to give us vitality, presence, increased capacity, and resilience to show up in the world the way we want to.
It’s not always easy to create (or revamp) your routine, but I’ll give you some tips for creating your own dinacharya, keeping in mind that what works for me might not work for you. It will be worth it, because no matter what happens during the rest of the day, at least when you wake up and go to bed, your body, mind and spirit have a foundation and a place of calm to relax, ground, and re-center.
- Waking before the sun can help you connect energetically with yourself, instead of your inbox or insta feed. Ideally get up with the sun, since that time of day is a great time to connect internally and is an impressionable time of day to do thought work and set intentions.
- Meditation in the morning supports fresh energy and a sense of calm and peace. Returning to this at the end of the day helps you come full circle and supports restful sleep.
- Movement is a key practice in the morning so you can set the stage for fulfilling the day’s requirements with enough energy, but so is finding time to be active throughout the day.
- Head to bed early – it’s recommended that you begin your evening ritual around 8:30pm to help you transition to bedtime. Turn off devices, wind down with a book or a bath, and transition from the busyness of the day to the chillazing we need at bedtime.
What’s one routine you can add to your morning or evening to help you feel more relaxed, grounded, mindful, or optimistic? Meditation, sun salutations, drinking water… these can take less than 5 minutes, or however long you want. Whatever you decide, you deserve that time.
No matter the bullshit that ensues the rest of the day – meetings, emails, complaints, arguments – remind yourself daily, every morning and evey evening, that in the big picture, you are 100% loveable, worthy, and fucking amazing, and that your life and the Universe are on your side. Because that, my friends, is the truth.
In this Episode, you will learn:
// Why routine is so critical to all humans
// How routine helps to heal you
// The Ayurvedic concepts of Dinacharya and Doshas
// 7 suggestions for creating a routine… plus a peek at my own daily routine!
Resources:
// If you’re loving what you’re learning in this podcast, you have got to come check out Freedom School. Freedoms School is the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out.
It’s also where you can get individual help applying the concepts to your own life. It’s where you can learn new coaching tools not shared on the podcast that will blow your mind even more, and it’s where you can hang out and connect over all things thought work with other freedom junkies just like you and me. It’s my favorite place on earth and it will change your life, I guarantee it. Come join us at JoinFreedomSchool.com I can’t wait to see you there.
// If you’re new to the squad, grab the starter kit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You’ll get access to the private Facebook group where you can ask me questions! Once you join, there’s also a weekly FB live called Wake the F*ck Up Wednesday, where you can ask questions that come up as you do this work – in all parts of your life.