This is Justin Michael Williams and welcome to your practice.
You are on day seven of the mindful mornings challenge right here on Insight Timer and you've made it to the end of your first week.
And today to celebrate,
I'm sharing a really special practice with you that I actually do in my own personal morning routine.
And this practice is called discovering your unique energy signature.
And every single person has one.
So listen carefully.
You know,
Mornings have always been a really sacred time for me and for I think all of the teachers here leading this program.
And the reason for me is actually very scientific.
So science has proven that when we wake up in the mornings,
Our brains are in a similar state to being hypnotized.
And so what you experience in the morning sets the emotional trajectory for your entire day.
And it's so much so that the Harvard Business Review actually found that people who watched three minutes of negative news makes you almost 30% more likely to report having a negative day six to eight hours later.
There's already enough stuff happening in the world that can make us have a bad day.
And so what we want to do is start our morning with a practice that allows us to check in with ourselves before we let any outside influences check in with us.
And so for me,
My golden rule is I literally don't even brush my teeth in the morning usually unless the breath is real bad without meditating first.
I say a little prayer.
I drop into my practice and I specifically do this practice about discovering your unique energy signature that we're going to do together right now.
So I'd actually like you to start today by placing your hand over your heart,
One over the other if it feels comfortable to you,
And close your eyes.
And if you'd prefer to keep your eyes open,
Obviously that's fine.
Just keep a soft gaze,
Keeping your eyes kind of blurred out.
Anytime you meditate with your eyes open,
It's important to keep them kind of fuzzy or blurred out so you don't get too distracted.
But if you're comfortable closing your eyes,
Go for it.
And then on the count of three,
I want you to exhale everything out of your system through your nose.
One,
Two,
Three.
Exhale everything out and come to completely empty.
And now to my count of three,
Inhale for one,
Two,
Three.
Hold for one,
Two,
Three.
Exhale one,
Two,
Three.
We're going to do that two more times.
Inhale one,
Two,
Three.
Hold for one,
Two,
Three.
Exhale one,
Two,
Three.
Great.
Last time,
Inhale deeper this time.
Inhale deeply.
One,
Two,
Three.
Hold this one a little bit longer.
See if you can sip in a little bit more air.
Breathe up into your collarbone and your throat and your jaw.
Hold the breath.
And then softly and slowly let it all out.
That's right.
And just breathe normally now.
And you can drop your hands if you feel comfortable.
But if you'd like,
Keep them over the heart.
It releases a little oxytocin into the body on this day seven of our journey together.
And I'm going to invite you now into a short visualization with me.
But what I want you to remember is that what most of us are taught to do in meditation is to try to push our lives away.
We try to push our to-do list away.
We try to push our thoughts away.
Today,
I'm going to actually ask you to welcome it in.
And I want you to see what magic unfolds when we do that.
Because when we push things down and away in our lives,
What happens is we lose the connection and sometimes things end up seeping out in our lives in places where they don't belong.
So let's see what occurs when we welcome in the dynamic experience that we have for this day.
All right,
Let's begin.
I want you to start this practice by thinking of everything that you have to do today.
Start to visualize yourself and imagine yourself going through the entire trajectory of your day.
What's coming next?
What are you going into in the morning and then flowing into the afternoon and into the evening?
And just let yourself flow through your to-do list and all the people you're going to come in contact with.
And as you flow through this moment of your day,
Just taking yourself moment to moment,
I want you to see if you can pause in one moment that you can imagine in your day,
Any moment and let's dimensionalize that vision a little bit more.
So pause in one place that you might imagine you'll be today.
And I want you to notice in this vision,
Are you indoor or are you outdoor?
Notice what color you're wearing in the vision.
Is there anybody there with you?
What do you see in the environment around you?
Do you notice anything,
Any shapes or any colors or textures?
And what's happening in this vision around you right now?
And I want you to notice in the vision of wherever you are,
Do you hear anything in the space?
Do you smell anything?
Do you taste anything?
And remember,
Don't force it.
Just notice,
Do you feel anything,
Any temperature change or anything touching your skin?
You're looking at a future you.
And notice the emotional quality as you look at this future you,
As you stop in this moment that's coming for you today.
And now I want to ask you a question and I want you to answer this question using one,
Two or three words,
First words that come to your mind.
Here's your question.
As you look at this future you from this day,
What energy do you need to cultivate in your life now,
Today,
To make this day the best day possible for you?
What energy do you need to cultivate to show up as the full expression of who you are,
No matter what situation you have to face today?
What energy is it?
What energy do you need?
Think of just one word,
Two words or three words.
It doesn't matter how many and trust the first words that arise.
Now I want you to start repeating those words in your mind,
Whatever word or words you came up with,
What energy do you need to cultivate?
And now I want you to imagine those words turning into a color or a light or a pattern or a texture.
And for the next several breaths I want you to imagine that you're literally inhaling the energy of these words.
And on each inhale the breath and the words merge together so that the energy is surging through your entire body,
Soothing you,
Bathing you like you're taking a shower in it,
Activating all the way inside of you.
So each inhale you're breathing this energy in,
Breathing your words in.
And then on your exhales I want you to start now and imagine you're sending that energy out to everyone who needs it.
So very simple reciprocal process.
Inhale what you need,
Exhale,
Send the energy out.
Do it a few more times.
Again,
Inhale what you need.
Let it bathe you,
Soothe you,
Heal any part of your mind that needs its support and your body and your spirit.
And exhale,
Send the energy out.
One more time.
Inhaling what you need and exhaling it,
Offering that same energy out to everyone you touch.
And then when you feel ready I invite you to open your eyes.
I want you to notice how powerful what we just did was.
In almost all cases,
Almost all cases,
What most practices invite you to do is we give you a mantra.
We give you a word to meditate on.
But today what I wanted you to do is create your own word,
Your own unique energy signature.
And the power of this is that you know what you need to have a good day.
And so I could have come here and gave us all a peace meditation or a love meditation.
But you needed something unique to you.
And what you have to remember in your life is the way that your day and your mood and your emotions and all of that is going to shift and change is not necessarily by changing what you do,
But by changing who you are being.
Now you have the power to take this energy into every single thing that you do today.
Let it be your anchor.
And it is a great,
Great honor to practice with you today.
I want to thank you for showing up to this challenge and making the commitment to yourself.
Good luck tomorrow for day eight of the mindful mornings challenge.
This is Justin Michael Williams signing out and I'll meet you right here in this special place the next time we practice together.
Bye for now.
