My Morning Ritual- Meditation, Breathwork, & Cold Plunge
Welcome to my morning ritual. I have found the following practices to bring great meaning to my life. Rituals, in my view, are patterned, repeated, intentional ways in which we can connect to more sacred, full, and alive energy within ourselves. It is also a pathway to connect with a deeper, more rich part of life and to sense something beyond what we see. In my mourning ritual, I will share three practices for connecting to ourselves and life with sacred hands…We will begin with a meditation, then a guided rhythmic breathwork practice, and end with a cold-plunge or cold-shower. Ok, let's do this! And remember Hold on to your center, for that is the only way.
Transcript
Welcome to my morning ritual.
I have found the following practices to bring great meaning to my life.
Rituals in my view are patterned,
Repeated,
Intentional ways in which we can connect to a more sacred,
Full,
And alive energy within ourselves.
It is also a pathway to connect with a deeper,
More rich part of life and to sense something beyond what we see.
Rituals bring about a felt sense of gratitude,
Awe,
Wonder,
Sacredness,
And aliveness.
There are three fundamental ingredients that distinguish a morning ritual from a morning routine or habit.
The three ingredients are intention,
Attention,
And repetition.
Author Caspar Turquoise states,
The sacredness is in the doing and that means we have enormous agency to make sacred happen ourselves.
In my morning ritual,
I will share three practices for connecting to ourselves and the life around us with sacred hands.
We will begin with a meditation,
Then a guided rhythmic breathwork practice,
And end with a cold plunge or cold shower.
Some mornings I go to the beach by my home and sit in my car to do the meditation and breathwork practice before jumping in the cold ocean.
Other mornings I sit by the altar in my room before jumping in the cold shower.
If you have a sacred place in nature by a body of water that you can easily and safely access,
I invite you to go there for your morning ritual.
Otherwise,
Create a sacred space somewhere in your home.
It does not have to be elaborate,
A small corner with a picture of your favorite place in nature,
Maybe some essential oils or a candle,
A rock or a feather that you've collected.
The outer form of this sacred space does not matter as much as just creating a space that you can return to each morning with intention,
Attention,
And repetition.
Let's begin with meditation.
I begin my morning ritual with meditation,
So find a comfortable place to sit.
This guided meditation is a way for us to open,
To ground,
To connect with ourselves and our body,
And to connect with our heart.
We do this practice not to have any particular experience,
There's no goal per se,
Other than to come into attunement to what's here now,
To what wants to be known,
To be held,
To be touched,
To really slow down and listen to the wisdom that's already within us.
Gently close your eyes and just allow yourself to fully arrive into this moment.
Allow your attention to fall and settle down at your feet.
Direct your energy and awareness toward the ground,
Feeling your feet on the ground.
Notice any sensations you may be aware of in your feet or at those points of contact where your feet meet the ground.
See if you can just sense your feet and notice the difference between thinking about your feet and actually sensing them.
Just be curious about this,
It can take some practice.
You might imagine roots growing out from the bottom of your feet,
Going down into the soft mud,
Extending into the womb of the earth,
And any sensations you feel by way of that softness,
The gooeyness of the mud,
The warmth,
The rich soil,
The life here.
Just open to how you're being supported and held exactly as you are without having to change or heal or understand anything or be or feel a certain way.
The earth isn't waiting for that.
Her holding is unconditional.
Life is not waiting for you to be different or to have some different experience.
No matter what's going on in your life right now,
You're being held by the earth.
Just sense that rootedness through your feet and down into the ground.
And when you notice your awareness moving back upward into thinking,
Just be curious about that.
What's that like as a perfectly valid and natural part of the meditation?
It's not the meditation gone wrong or somehow you failed,
But recognizing the dynamic nature of awareness with gentleness and curiosity and just bringing your attention back to the ground,
To the body,
To this meditation.
And you might press your left foot gently into the floor as a way to further ground yourself.
Just notice any sensations there,
A tingling or aliveness,
An openness,
Heat or cold,
Pressure or even a numbness.
Now your right foot,
Pressing it gently into the floor.
Just noticing any sensations that are there as you are rooted in the ground,
Held in the mud and the womb with your energy and awareness directed towards the holding field of the earth.
And now allowing your awareness to move up and out of the earth and your feet,
Coming into your legs and to all the muscles there.
Allowing them to be filled with life energy,
Which is your attention,
Your curiosity,
Your warmth.
Just feeling,
Sensing,
Listening to the quality of your experience here and the aliveness of your legs,
To even bring some compassion to your legs and the muscles for everything they've given you,
Provided to you for all these years.
Now including your belly,
Allowing your awareness to move up out of the earth and your feet,
Through your legs and coming to rest in your belly.
See what it would be like to soften your belly.
We often hold our bellies in,
Especially in our culture,
Without even knowing it to protect ourselves and our sacred core.
Just allow this softening and felt sense of letting go to touch and wash through you.
Your belly is a wisdom field with its own brain of over a hundred million neurons.
Place one or both hands on your belly,
Opening those compassion pathways with touch,
As a gesture that says to the belly,
I'm here,
I'm present,
I'm listening.
We hold so much in our bellies,
Unmetabolized grief,
Sadness,
Rage,
Even unfelt joy,
As well as our power,
Our presence,
Our center.
So just take a few minutes and connect as deeply as you're able to the wisdom and information in your belly.
Sensing,
Listening,
Feeling.
Now continuing up to include your heart,
This vast center of connection,
Openness,
And warmth.
The very center of your entire being,
The organizing center and location of love in the human body.
Just take a moment and feel your heart.
Remember it,
Honor it,
Let it know that you're aware of it and listening.
So just take a few nourishing,
Cleansing breaths into and out of the heart,
Allowing that sacred life energy to move in and out of your heart center.
If it helps you could visualize the energy moving in and out as a soft yellow light.
Gently place one or both of your hands on your heart as a way to acknowledge it by way of touch,
Deepening your connection as a gesture of presence and care.
And so now including the earth,
Your feet,
Legs,
Belly,
Heart,
All contained and held within the warmth of your awareness.
Just rest here fully open and alive and listening to the wisdom of your body and nervous system.
Whatever visitor arrives into this open warm field of awareness,
An emotion,
A thought,
An image,
A memory,
A feeling,
Each is welcome here as a guest of the nervous system.
Perhaps an ally helping you to find your way home to wholeness,
Aliveness,
To truly being here.
So let's just spend a few more moments together allowing the meditation to dissolve and to just rest in that warm,
Spacious,
Compassionate awareness.
And as you're ready you can just allow your eyes to open and fully come back into the room that you're in.
Thank you for joining me in my morning meditation.
We're now going to begin a guided rhythmic breath work practice.
I find connecting with my breath and my body is really a way to connect to my vital force energy.
This helps me feel my true essence and opens the inner channels of aliveness and vitality.
For this practice you can sit,
Lie down,
Wherever you are allow yourself to connect with your center,
The life energy living inside of you.
I have learned this type of breath work practice from my teacher Wim Hof.
It is a type of hyperventilation and breath holding practice.
In this practice we will be breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Each round consists of 30 circular breaths.
On the last breath I will instruct you to exhale fully and hold yourself empty for 60 to 90 seconds.
After the breath holds I will instruct you to then take a full strong inhale and sustain this inhale for 15 seconds.
We'll be doing three rounds of this type of breathing.
30 seconds of breath followed by a 60 or 90 second breath holds followed by a strong inhale for 15 seconds.
Close your eyes now.
It's time to return to your center and return to the power of your breath.
Here we go.
Round number one.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Find the rhythm with your breath.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
Nice.
Deep circular breaths.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
No pause between the breath.
Keep going.
You are almost there.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
Find the rhythm with your breath.
Circular breath.
In,
Out.
A few more.
Last one.
Full and on the exhale stop.
Hold empty for 60 seconds starting now.
Be here now.
Notice your heart beating.
Slow it down.
Allow this energy to flow throughout your body.
From the tip of your head down to your toes.
You are almost there.
Deep inhale in 5,
4,
3,
2,
1.
Take a deep breath in and sustain for 15 seconds.
Exhale in 3,
2,
1.
Let it all go.
Round number two.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Find the rhythm with the breath.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
Imagine the vital force energy you are creating filling your body and being.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
No pause between the breath.
In,
Out.
You are almost there.
10 more.
5 more breaths.
Last one.
Full inhale.
On the exhale stop.
Hold the breath for 90 seconds now.
Feel.
Become the observer.
Notice the blood pumping through your body.
If you feel light headed or tingling sensations in your body that is perfectly normal.
Your body is balancing.
Let this energy circulate.
You are almost there.
Deep inhale in 5,
4,
3,
2,
1.
Take a deep breath in and sustain for 15 seconds.
Exhale in 3,
2,
1.
Release.
Final round.
Back into your flow.
Nice deep circular breaths.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
Each breath connecting you to your center.
Your vital force energy.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
In,
Out.
Keep going.
Give these last breaths all you got.
10 more.
5 more.
Last one.
Full inhale.
On the exhale stop.
Hold empty for 90 seconds starting now.
Observe.
Feel the energy in your body.
The power and aliveness that is your creation flowing through you.
Allow it to circulate.
Bringing balance and alignment.
Releasing any old stagnant energy.
You are almost there.
Deep inhale in 5,
4,
3,
2,
1.
Take a deep breath in and sustain for 15 seconds.
Exhale in 3,
2,
1.
Release.
Allow your breathing to return to normal.
Stay in this space for just a few more moments.
Feel that connection to your inner space,
Your inner world.
This is your true essence.
This is your vital force energy.
Absorb this vitality and energy that is yours.
You created this.
Be still and know.
This is your true nature.
Observe the unfolding.
As you gently enter back into the world,
Know that you can access this place anytime by simply returning back to your breath.
I finished my morning ritual with a cold plunge in the ocean or a cold shower.
Writer Annie Dillard teaches us that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
My mornings in the cold water is time spent feeling alive,
Present,
And connected to my raw and primal self.
This morning dip really is a pathway to my most alive self.
It is also another layer to the practice of holding on to my center,
That place within myself that no one,
No thing,
And no situation can take away from me,
Even amongst the cold,
Which really is a metaphor to the chaos and swirl and triggers of life being life.
The goal with the cold is to stay connected to yourself,
To your body and breath,
And to stay in the cold for as long as it takes until you can find presence,
Stillness,
Inner peace,
And calm.
This usually takes about two minutes for myself.
This is a time to simply be with yourself,
To not try and fix yourself,
Or be something different.
If you are taking a cold shower,
I often like to play a song that matches the intensity and aliveness of the cold.
Okay,
Let's do this.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
And remember,
Hold on to your center,
For that is the only way.
