This is my newest morning mantra.
I believe in morning mantras. I like to remind myself, as soon as I come to consciousness, of something which I know to be true, from my own direct experience. I have discovered again and again all the ways the world answers my longings with invitations, and each offer is a Yes to my own essential self, my own kind connection with Life.
First light of day has some sacred juju. There’s a thin veil, a softness between worlds. Every single morning when you wake up, there’s a distinct second when some part of you declares yourself “awake.” There’s a nothing in the nanosecond between asleep and awake. And then there’s a something, as you move from the distant lands of dream into this multi-storied existence we inhabit daily.
On this side there are lists, memories, plans.
Also the mindless habits of yesterdays past. They get rebooted, too. In a nanosecond.
A very valuable nanosecond.
Because there is a moment no longer than a blink of an eye, before the old hardwiring is launched.
In that moment the world is full of yes.
It’s as if a shy part of me is waiting to be heard and knows just when and where to show up in the early morning. I set an appointment with it, set a timer (with a kind, gentle signal), and there she is, patiently waiting.
Early mornings offer a soft launching pad for this new relationship with life. In that moment, the world summons us, if we can catch the new wave. Yes to gravity. Yes to movement. .Foot on floor. For me, sitting quietly in meditation before picking up my journal and engaging in my writing practice opens the doors to Yes. Then perhaps I capture a dream, perhaps I begin with a list of possibilities. Perhaps I begin with a perhaps. My pen shows me the way and slows down mind enough that it can be heard. The Yeses expand as the day unfolds.
The World is Full of Yes. When I begin the day this way, I live beyond gratefulness and into possibility.
How do you greet that Yes with your own? Here’s how it might look to live into the yes of possibility:
- First, if possible, Go to bed with enough time to awaken gently.
- Get the harsh alarm out of the picture except in urgent situations. If you must use a timer, set it on a soft setting.
- Don’t jump up. Luxuriate in the liminal time between sleep and wake. Come back to your body gently with a blessing of awareness and slight rotations or stretches.
- Give yourself a few minutes of quiet, meditation or prayer. Evoke a new relationship with life by affirming it.
- Invite your mind to wander and discover all the ways your world is full of yes. ~When the time is right, follow that flow to what’s next. When you’ve allowed time to engage in an early morning practice, there’s time to explore your world in slow motion.
- Instead of mechanically moving to email or robotic old habits, move back into stillness. with a yes to the invitations of the Universe.
