There was a stage in my life when I had fallen into a dark despair. I felt stifled, and my sense of personal power felt low. I knew that I had to make some sort of move or do something in order to move out of this way of being. I had recently read about having some form of daily ritual (I define ritual basically as being anything you do that has intent and total dedication) at the same time each day, as being a good way to develop personal power. I knew that the best way to affect change in my life was to build up that energy source within, so I thought it would be good to give it a try.
I decided to start a ritual every morning when I woke up. Basically I would go and run around the block, brush my teeth, and then listen to the same song every morning. I had aimed to do this forty days, and then see the effects, by about the 21st day I was beginning to have a lot of insights about myself that helped me in many ways to build confidence in particular areas in my life that I had previously felt uncomfortable in. The mixture of these three activities, that had no correlation to each other, also played a huge part in helping me to gain better access to things brewing in my sub-conscious. Individually they also had benefits; running helped me to battle the sluggishness of the morning, brushing the teeth was made into something more sacred, and dancing and hearing a favorite song helped me to release pent up energy.
Nowadays my morning routine is based more around practices such as yoga, chi kung, and exploring and healing my sub-conscious. This usually takes between 1 ½ - 2 ½ hours. I find that this makes a great start to the day. It helps give me the space to be able to gain a center in peacefulness. I chose to do these practices because they help me with my current goals; which are to find integration of different energies within me, and to build my body up energetically so it can have more capacity to hold Divine energy (through health and vitality practices). Having seen the benefits of a morning practice first hand, I recommend it to others.
The practices you do should ideally tie into things you wish to achieve. A self-created set of exercises or words that are regularly done can work just as well as following a practice from a particular tradition. Through my own experience I have found a good way to e
ncourage beginning on the path of particular spiritual techniques for self-development (that may initially be too difficult to make into a regular routine). The way to do this is to pick something initially that is really familiar to you. If you like to dance, do something that incorporates dance, if you like to sing, do something that incorporates singing, if its sport your into, make your training for that a sacred routine, etc. One way to make ordinary activity sacred is by offering the activity up to whatever you consider the highest force in the Universe, whether you name it Nature, God, Goddess, a particular Deity, Love, Compassion etc,
When you begin, the key is to start with something really simple, even something like a short poem you recite upon waking every morning, that you find really inspiring. Remember, once you can build up more inner power within yourself, it is easier to take on and remain dedicated to any new practice you wish to maintain. Be patient, and don’t get discouraged if you miss a day because of temporary laziness. Use the energy of that discouragement to fire you up and transform it into more dedication.
Waking up as the sun rises or just before is also a good habit to get in to, but to do this one has to have the discipline to be able to get a good nights sleep. One also has to know “how” to get a good nights sleep. Which is beyond the scope of this article, but I do encourage you to do some research on this.
Having a good start to the day is a good beginning to getting your life in harmony. A morning practice can be of short or long duration depending on the individual. It can take a spiritual focus, an athletic focus, a creative focus etc. It can be as short as two minutes. At one stage my morning ritual was that I would stand with my hands in prayer position and say three times with immense feeling, “I stand in my own power, with an open heart and a clear mind.” I made up this exercise, and it was good to have a personalized exercise. It is also good to have an exercise learned from traditions, then as you practice them you have the weight of the traditions to push you along. You can also take note of the times of the day in which these things are traditionally practiced, and do them then if possible.
This article is primarily hoping to encourage people to embrace a morning practice/ritual of some sort, but any other time of the day is also good if the morning is not appropriate.
May vitality and health be with you!
