Miracle Mornings

Hey friends, today I wanted to talk to you about a recent change I made in my life with my Miracle Mornings. You can read the full details about the Miracle Morning on their website. I’m striving to be a happier, more successful individual.

As you know, I’ve been looking for a new job for months. My last full-time position ended at the end of July, but I’ve been job searching for much longer. It’s been frustrating, depressing, and stressful. I’ve had a good amount of interviews, but I’m often the ‘second pick’ or so I’m told, so no offers. I know this is in part due to the fact that somewhere between 18-30 million Americans, myself included, are out of work right now. There’s a ton of competition for every position.

Anyway, I needed to try something unrelated to job hunting to cheer myself up. Dave asked me if I would be willing to get up an extra hour earlier in the morning to try the Miracle Morning with him. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I said yes.

Before we start on our Miracle Mornings, I take Nyx and Amaya out to go potty. I get myself a glass of water and drink it. Sometimes I eat breakfast beforehand but if it’s a day where I’m doing a short fast (12 to 16 hours), I skip it until after I’m done with the Miracle Morning.

By the way, these are just the steps that Dave and I use,  in the order we use them. You may want to tweak them a bit to better fit your schedule.

Step One – Meditation

The first step that we take is to put on what I call spa music for five to ten minutes of meditation. It’s got soft chime sounds, wind gently blowing through the leaves on trees, and it’s super relaxing. I sit cross legged on my sofa, close my eyes, listen to the music, and visualize my inner sanctum.

My inner sanctum is always nighttime with a full moon over a still lake and tall trees with leaves. There’s a fountain near the lake that I always envision cleaning leaves out of when I get there, so that the water coming out of the fountain is pure and clear. I either lay under the trees or float on my back in the lake, listening to the leaves moving in the breeze and feeling the moonlight on my skin.

This is a very relaxing time for me. Sometimes Nyx or Amaya will crawl into my lap while I’m doing it. I really don’t mind because I find it soothing to hold and pet the girls.

I spend about 5 minutes on meditation currently, but will probably increase the time to 10 minutes.

Step Two – Affirmations

I’m revising my affirmations to be the way I want them to be, but I’m using some boilerplate ones until I finish that. I have affirmations for Self-Confidence, Health and Fitness, Relationships, Financial Health, Adversity, and Writing. I speak each set of Affirmations out loud to cement them into my mind.

If you’re not into Affirmations, you can always try prayer if that’s more your style.

This step takes me as long as it takes. I speak my affirmations slowly, clearly, and put emphasis on the meaning of each word to imbue them with my intentions.

I spend 5 to 10 minutes on Affirmations because I also listen to Dave speak his Affirmations. He listens to me speak mine as well.

Step Three – Visualizations

Dave and I have been using the visualizations portion to picture what the broad strokes of our day will look like from start to finish. I envision my short-term goals to do for the day and how things will turn out. Everything from taking my shower, brushing my teeth, putting on skin care and SPF, walking the dogs, playing with the dogs outside, job hunting, exercising, cooking, talking to family and friends, and how I want my evening to end.

At the end of the day when I reflect on the visualizations for our Miracle Mornings, I find myself filled with satisfaction for having met my daily goals.

Obviously some days I end up doing more than others. Like yesterday I managed to break 3 nails. I wasn’t visualizing  breaking my nails, but after that I had to spend time to fix them. I have a written nail tutorial here on how to use Orly Builder in a Bottle with Apres Natural Short Stiletto tips to create my witch claws.

I spend about 5 minutes on visualizations.

Step Four – Exercise

Over the past 7 years I’ve become very committed to exercising for my health. I’ve always believed in Health at Every Size thanks to my friend Marianne Kirby, but after my failed stint with veganism/vegetarianism due to many things including my allergies to soy, nightshades, and most fake meat products, I became frustrated with food and how I always felt sick.

I started the slow process of changing my habits. I quit drinking soda and switched to water. I joined a gym with Ray for two years and had a personal trainer teach us about nutrition and how to exercise properly. I cut out almost all processed foods. It still wasn’t enough for my body.

About 2.5 years ago, I tried keto along with my exercise routine and now I’m in literally the best shape of my life at 42. My cholesterol, blood sugar, and everything else the Dr. tested has improved tremendously. That’s why I’ve continued to eat low carb, low sugar, high fat, and medium to high protein as needed.

For my Miracle Mornings with Dave, we do 5 to 10 minutes of tai chi together. I love the visualizations and energy work with it. We use the Taiflow videos on Youtube.

Other Exercise I Do

I make time during the rest of the day to exercise in other ways. As some of you know I injured my neck and shoulders in late February. I’ve had issues with my trapezoid muscles locking up, having spasms, and causing me intense pain. I’ve been doing physical therapy as instructed by my doctor at home since I do not want to risk going in person to a PT clinic. I do my physical therapy exercises once a day.

Dave and I have made it a habit to take an hour walk in the evenings together, as well. And I just started taking 20-30 minute walks  individually with Amaya and Nyx, rather than together, to improve our bonds. Twice a week I do leg day with Dave (we joke and call it butt stuff), focusing on my glutes because of the fact that we sit in front of computers for many hours a day.

I love to play BeatSaber and Synth Riders on my Valve Index VR System (and yes I still have an Oculus Rift VR system), as those are great cardio games.

Yes, I exercise 7 days a week now, even if it’s only tai chi and walking. It has given me more energy and I love it. Taking a walk clears my head and lifts my spirits. It also makes me think of Grandma, because she used to walk every single day. Tai chi somehow simultaneously makes me feel less anxious and more energized.

Step 5 – Reading

We spend at least 20 minutes reading or listening to audio books. Sometimes I read a supernatural urban fantasy novel like Battle Grounds by Jim Butcher (so thrilled to see LGBTQIA and polyamory positively portrayed in his book),  Wishful Thinking by Helen Harper, or Sucker Punch by Laurell K. Hamilton. Other times I read things like Training Your Own Service Dog, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, or Atomic Habits.

This isn’t the only time I read each day, but it means that I am devoting at least 20 minutes to it every morning. I do all of my reading on my iPad. I love my iPad, though it’s the only iDevice I use right now since I gave up my iPhone for a Google Pixel 4.

Step 6 – Scribing / Writing

I’m an introvert who loves to write, as you all know. This is evidenced by my 12.5 year old blog (I’ve written close to 8,000 blog posts, though I’ve deleted about half that) and my book that I wrote for you Hooded Eyes Makeup Manual. Even before I graduated from university, I used my writing talents to create game content for a video game used to teach English to Japanese students. I wrote dialogue, people, room and object descriptions.

During my Miracle Mornings, I spend the writing portion on my gratitude journaling. I write down, then speak out loud, all of the things that I’m grateful for that day. Gratitude Journaling has helped me to make a tremendous mindset shift towards the positive.

Learn more about how to gratitude journal. It’s free and fast to get started!

I spend between 5 and 10 minutes on writing for my Miracle Mornings.

My Miracle Mornings

As you can see, I spend about an hour (sometimes more, sometimes less) in the morning setting my intentions for the day. I love taking this time for myself, improving my mental and physical health. I also appreciate having a partner who shares my core values and does this with me.

After we finish the Miracle Morning is when I get on with the rest of my day. I’ll shower, brush my teeth, eat breakfast and start to work on a project.

My Miracle Evenings

The other thing that Dave and I have been doing in the evenings thanks to the Miracle Mornings is to reflect on how our day went. We talk about how closely it matched our visualizations. We discuss our successes, failures, how things went different from our vision, and our overall satisfaction. What I’ve noticed is that I’ve got far more satisfaction with my day by having this morning structure.

I also verbally set intentions before bed. I say out loud that I will get a good night’s sleep, wake up refreshed and rested, that I’ll have good dreams, and that I’m going to feel great when I wake up. Every little bit helps.

How Do Handle You Setbacks?

I’ve been asked, ‘how do you handle setbacks?’ since I’ve had many of them. Here’s what I’m now doing when I’m experiencing a setback or negative event.

I allow myself to spend 5 to 10 minutes venting and as upset as I need to be. Crying, screaming into a pillow, complaining to a friend, or whatever it is I need to do to get it out. After I get it all out, I tell myself that whatever the setback was, it wasn’t meant to be, and that there are many other opportunities out there. I just need to continue to be my authentic self, to be honest, to help people however I can, to stay positive (but not toxic positivity), and continue to improve myself.

Remind yourself that for every setback, there’s another opportunity coming your way. And sometimes a setback is really a blessing in disguise. Some opportunities that I’ve been upset over, once I learned more about how they turned out, I was very glad that they weren’t meant for me. I dodged a bullet, so to speak.

Plan to Meet Goals

I spend far more time planning now than I ever have. I map out how to reach future goals. You can dream of having an amazing life, but if you don’t spend the time to plan how to get there, you may never achieve it. It’s very important to me to map out how I get from where I’m at now to where I want to be.

How are you doing? Have you ever tried anything like my Miracle Mornings?