// New Year // New Beginnings // New Perspectives // New Routine // New Ways of Being //
As we started a new year, which we associate with new beginnings, I decided to share with you 5 ways to improve your morning routine and open up to creative ideas throughout your day.
1) INTENTION SETTING
How often do you start your day without checking in with yourself?
If you don't give yourself the time to check in on a regular basis, you might feel a sense of disconnection from yourself and your goals. Taking a moment to pause before your day begins to ask yourself what do you want to get out of it can help you become more connected and aware.
Setting intentions can be a powerful way to become more clear on the direction that you want to take. Setting intentions empowers us to decide what we want and how we want to experience life. Life is indeed unpredictable but we are the ones who decide how to response and take decisions, and intention setting helps us do that.
It is great to set your intention first thing in the morning to set the vibe of your day. I do that after a pranayama session with my online community. Find out about pranayama sessions here.
How do you set intentions?
~ Identify your desire: Understand your feeling underneath the desire and keep the intention connected to the feeling rather than the outcome.
~ Gain clarity on who you are being: Goals are about doing and intentions are about being. Focus on who you need to be to achieve your goal.
~ Get specific: become clear with what steps you need to take in order to fulfil your intention and follow them.
~ Deconstruct limiting beliefs: If you don't believe that the intention is possible for you could impede the intention from manifesting. Find an evidence in support of it already happening in your current reality.
~ Believe and reinforce your intentions: Reinforce your intentions with examples of your life. The best is to do that after a pranayama practice or meditation when the brain is more relaxed and receptive.
~ Surrender: Give yourself permission to change and adjust your intentions as you go, which in turn helps release control over the situation.
The way we change our lives is through awareness and intentional action. By setting an intention, you bring presence to your own thoughts and actions. Without the right mindset, it’s easy to get distracted or talk yourself out of your goals. That’s why you need an intention. It’s a reminder of what you’re capable of.
Enjoy your day!
2) PRANAYAMA PRACTICE
Pranayama or Yogic Breathing is the ancient practice of controlling the breath. It allows us to be more aware, be in the present, and focus inward, removing distractions from the outside world.
We are able to connect to our intuition and and inner guidance.
Through our breath we can release blockages in our thinking, feelings, and behaviour. When we feel worried or afraid, we hold our breath. This action takes away our vital life energy, and makes us feel exhausted and even more stressed.
Pranayama releases us from any unproductive fixations on stubborn problems. By breathing effectively and fully using the breath through yogic techniques, we feel more energised, more relaxed and healthier. By awakening prana in the body we bring the free flow of inspiration.
3) MEDITATION
We are often so focused on our thoughts, our emotions, and all the circumstances around us, we get identified with them and try to find peace and happiness in them. But their nature is not lasting. So, how can we find lasting happiness?
By withdrawing the senses from outward activities and turning it inward, we bring a certain amount of quietness inside, which leads to a state of joy and peace.
Meditation leads us to this space within. By accessing this space, we can experience the flow state where the mind is calm and undistracted, allowing us a clearer view of what lies beneath our thoughts and feelings - this place where creative thinking thrives.
When we meditate, when we rest in awareness, we are resting in creativity; we are creating the conditions to move through life effortlessly, from one situation to the next, with a sense of freedom.
4) YOGA
Imagine what happens in your body when you stand on your head, or twist your body into an unusual shape.
Of course, this has an effect on your brain and on your sense of self! It offers you a different perspective of you and the world around you.
Yoga benefits us in many ways - a lot more than just being a stress-relief as a good exercise.
Practicing yoga unblocks the energy channels in the body and leads to greater life force, vitality and clarity of mind. The more mental clarity and aliveness you have, the more you are not restricted by mental constraints, and the greater your openness to the world becomes.
5) COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PLANT FRIENDS!
Plants provide us with vital oxygen, plants can nourish and nurture us, plants provide us with shelter, plants can affect our mental health, plants can help us preserve memories, plants can heal our wounds.
‘It is not that which has been passed on to me as truth that allows me to live and to think; the essential function of air and of breath has been forgotten as the mediation for both living and transcending a mere natural life.
This function of mediation, in fact, already existed between the vegetal world and myself. We were, in a way, in communion with one another. Air put us into living relations even if we did not assume the same role with respect to it. Through air, I participated in a universal exchange from which my tradition cut me off . Thus, I was alone and not alone. I took part in a universal sharing. Gradually, I experienced such an involvement, and this brought me comfort, gratitude, and also responsibility. I became a citizen of the world, first as an inhabitant of the earth who joined in a sharing of air.’
― Luce Irigaray, Michael Marder, Through Vegetal Being
Communicate with your plants when you wake up! See what they have to tell you!