Creating A Sacred Morning

Good morning,

Namaste.

My name is Sierra.

I'm from the local mystic and I'm really excited to be sharing a morning journaling exercise with you guys today.

So we're going to start with just a little bit of easy stretching to kind of get you into the body,

A really brief meditation,

And then we're going to do some journaling together.

So I'll actually give you the space and the time to journal as we move through this little class together.

So to get started,

All you need is your journal and a pen or a pencil and then some space where you can stretch comfortably.

If you want to be on your yoga mat,

That's perfectly fine.

We're not going to do too much movement,

So you could also just stay seated maybe on the floor or if you have a little cushion to sit up on,

That would be great too.

So go ahead and gather your materials and let's meet in a comfortable seat when you're ready.

So we're just going to start in a comfortable cross-legged or any seated position really on your mat or on your cushion on the floor and then let the hands rest in the lap and let's come to sit up nice and tall.

Let's take a big inhale and shrug your shoulders up towards your ears,

Squeeze them in tight,

And then exhale,

Let them fall down the back.

Let's do that again.

Big inhale,

Shrug the shoulders up,

Exhale,

Let them fall down.

Good.

Let's draw the chin in towards the chest,

Gently lengthening the back of the neck here.

Let the shoulders relax down on your back.

Breathe.

Let's inhale,

Open up the chin,

Lift the throat up towards the sky.

Take a big breath here.

Good.

Come to center,

Let's drop your right ear towards your right shoulder.

Let's take a little bit of extension across the left shoulder.

Let's come up to center and second side,

Left ear to left shoulder.

Good.

Come up through center.

Let's inhale,

Stretch the hands up nice and high towards the sky.

Reach out through the fingertips.

Let's exhale,

Take the right hand down beside you,

Reach your left hand up and over to the right so you're stretching through the left side body.

You can look down towards the floor.

Maybe feel a couple good snap crackle pops.

As you begin to wake up the spine,

Wake up the body,

Breathe in here and out.

Let's come up through center.

Take the arms out in a big wide T shape.

Palms come forward and open up the heart.

As you draw the shoulders down the back,

Maybe bend the elbows a little bit,

Open the throat,

Breathe in.

Good.

And let's come to second side.

Left hand drops down by the hip,

Right hand reaches up and over.

Reach out through the side of the body.

Good.

Come back up through center.

Again,

Take that heart opening stretch.

Maybe even you want to find cactus or goalpost arms as you open the heart up towards the sky.

One more breath here.

Beautiful.

Let the hands and the spine come back to neutral as you just sit up nice and tall.

Take one more stretch here,

Just a brief twist.

As you sit up nice and tall,

Take your right hand behind you and let your left hand hook onto the outer edge of your right thigh.

Look back over your right shoulder and maybe hug the belly button in just a bit to help you accentuate that twist.

If it's morning time for you,

Wherever you are,

Maybe you're getting some of the sleepiness out of the body.

Gently come back to center.

Take it nice and slow.

Breathe for a moment.

Let's do second side.

Left hand behind you,

Right hand,

Outer thigh.

Look back,

Sit up nice and tall.

Good.

Look forward and then gently unravel.

Perfect.

So now we have a little bit of movement and some space into our body.

Let's rest the hands back in the lap or on the knees,

Whichever feels best.

We're going to take just a brief meditation to help get us centered in the heart before we dive into our journaling today.

So sit up nice and tall.

Begin to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to settle in here.

Take a deep inhale through the nose.

Fill the belly up with air.

And sigh it out.

Do two more breaths just like that.

Deepest inhale and releasing exhale.

And allow your breath to come back to a neutral.

As you settle more deeply into the body and into your seat,

Maybe you can start to feel the edges of the body soften just a little bit.

So around your elbows,

Maybe the knees,

The ankles,

The shoulders,

The jaw,

The forehead.

Go ahead and let everything soften and settle into this seat,

Into this moment.

Giving ourselves time and space to wake up slowly and intentionally because we know that how we spend the first few moments of our day can help us set the tone for the entire rest of the day.

So just give yourself a few moments of intentionality here,

Even if you start to feel the mind wander and rush towards all the things you have to do later today,

Just for this moment.

Just see if you can let some of that fall to the side.

We'll get to it later.

But for now it's just you,

Your breath,

Your body.

You can let your awareness drop down into your heart space now.

Right at the center of the chest,

Behind the breastbone,

At the center of your body,

Just notice whatever emotions or sensations are there for you this morning in your heart space.

Having no judgment,

No need to change or tidy up any emotions or responses that you feel in the body here,

We're just noticing.

Beginning to tap into our emotional body.

Tapping into that seat of intuition,

Your higher self,

If you choose.

Noticing how you're feeling this morning.

Maybe taking a moment of gratitude for our ability to wake up to another beautiful day.

A moment of gratitude for all the things we'll be able to accomplish and all the loved ones we'll be able to see today.

Setting the intention to meet this day with our best self.

And you can bring the hands towards the heart center if you like in a prayer position.

We call this Anjali Mudra.

It is a seal of the heart.

Maybe setting the intention to live from the heart today.

Gently releasing the hands back down into the lap.

Take one more full breath in.

And out.

Softly blink open your eyes.

Good morning.

Now let's reach over and grab your journal and your pen and bring yourself to a fresh blank page.

So I'm going to give us a few prompts to work through together.

And after each prompt,

I'll give us some time for you to dive into it.

Now after this class is over,

If you would like to go back and maybe get a little bit deeper into some of these topics,

You're more than welcome to.

But I'll just keep us at a pace throughout the class and tell us when it's ready to move on to the next one.

So if you'd like,

You can date the top of the page and then underneath the date,

You're going to start the sentence.

Today,

I feel.

And then just carry on from there with however you feel.

This seems like a simple one at first.

It's easy to say,

Oh,

I feel happy or I feel sad.

I feel angry.

But I challenge you to not let the first answer be your final answer and maybe look a little bit deeper into it.

So maybe see if you can explore why you feel the way that you do today.

We explore what that feeling feels like in the body.

You know,

Give yourself time to get a little bit more in depth than just the cognitive answer that comes to the surface here.

So today I feel.

And then carry on from there.

I feel.

I feel.

I feel.

I feel.

I feel.

I feel.

Go ahead and take a moment here.

Start to kind of wrap up your thoughts or any sentences that you're on.

Again,

Feeling free if you even want to pause the video and spend a little bit more time here.

That would be wonderful.

The magic of digital media.

Right.

So as you're ready,

We'll come into our second prompt here.

Feel free to skip a line.

And now you're going to write.

Here's what today will look like.

Here's what today will look like.

And the beauty of this prompt is that it's going to look different every day,

Not just in the sense of a task list,

But maybe you see this more as a visualization exercise.

Depending on where your mind is at this morning,

If you know you have a lot to do,

It's perfectly fine to just brain dump all the things that you have to do today just to get them out of your head.

But if you're feeling a bit more spacious,

A little bit more dreamy,

Then you can take this time to visualize what you want your day to look like today.

How do you want to feel?

So it can go kind of either way.

Just just go with the response or the urge that's coming up for you right now.

So here's what today will look like.

So.

So.

So.

So.

So go ahead and start to wrap up.

If you're ready or pausing the video if you're not.

Then we'll come to our final prompt together and maybe by now you're ready for a new page like I am.

So for our final prompt,

We're going to create an affirmation for the day.

So you can start it just at the top or on a new line.

Today's affirmation is.

Today's affirmation is.

And then come up with an affirmative present tense statement that makes you feel empowered or uplifted in a sense.

So this could be I am something it could be I create I feel maybe it's I release even.

Feel free to take some time with this,

But don't worry about making it perfect.

Sometimes the thing that comes to mind comes to the heart first and sometimes the thing that we need to hear the most.

So today's affirmation is.

Go ahead and wrap up.

Feel free to close your journal,

Set it off to the side.

Let's come back to our comfortable seats and let's bring the hands on to the heart.

So actually placing the palms against the chest a little bit different than our Anjali Mudra.

Close the eyes.

Just take a moment to let all of that integrate.

Allow yourself to feel how you feel today.

Allow yourself to see how your day is going to play out.

And also invite a sense of openness,

A sense of release into the body,

Even though we might have all of these specific tasks and to do is planned out.

Maybe none of it will go the way that we think.

That is perfectly wonderful and will still be OK at the end of the day,

No matter what.

And you call into your heart your affirmation for the day,

Taking a deep breath in as you repeat it once to yourself.

Shanti Shanti Shanti,

I wish you all peace and love and abundance for your day today.

Thank you so much for spending your morning with me and your practice.

I really hope that this has inspired you to create maybe a regular morning journaling practice and know that there's so much fluidity behind it.

You don't have to do these exact three prompts every morning.

You can just write whatever comes to mind,

Even just a little bit of practice will be super beneficial to your well-being,

To your spiritual well-being and to how you interact with yourself and everyone else for the rest of the day.

So thank you so much.

I'll see you soon.

Namaste.