Do you have a morning routine? You know one of those things that millionaires and successful people apparently do? It usually consists of some form of strenuous exercise, meditation, green protein shake, journaling and a gratitude practice. I’m not sure about you but it would be around lunch time before I managed to get all this done and I’d be feeling frustrated and hungry too – you know hangry!
I’m all for getting up early, exercising, eating well and checking in with my body and spirit to make sure I’m feeling good and ready for what’s coming my way. I’m just not sure I could have all this done by 9:00am. Or earlier if I had kids to manage and a 9:00 – 5:00 job to go to.
For me this regular, scheduled, disciplined morning routine is very masculine. And while I love balance in my life – masculine-feminine, yin-yang – I really hate the idea of having to do something like this when I just don’t feel like it. There are mornings when I wake up and I’m energised and ready to run a marathon but there are also mornings when I wake up and I just want to lie in bed and dream all the possibilities, or to be perfectly honest, just roll over and go back to sleep. So, does this mean I’ll never be a millionaire or successful in business and life. NO. It does not. And I know that because I am already those things and it didn’t take a regular morning routine to get there.
So, let’s back track a bit here. Firstly, the reason morning routines are very masculine is because they rely on masculine energy. The structured, disciplined action-oriented energy that we all carry. Secondly, the idea of a morning routine comes from text and ideals of how to be a “successful man” – you know those ones that don’t have primary responsibility for the kids and the household. The ones that apparently, we can all model ourselves on (this is just one example where males are used to represent a “typical” human experience). Thirdly men have a hormonal cycle that goes for around 24 hours. Women have a hormonal cycle that goes for around 28 days. Put all this together and it’s no wonder we find it hard to have a regular morning routine we love that makes us full of love and light by 7:00am.
This is just another example of how we as women, have been set up to fail and feel bad about ourselves and therefore lose confidence in our ability to achieve our big dreams.
Well guess what? We can do things that move us in the direction of our big dreams. We just do them in a different way. We have our own superpowers that don’t rely on us having a regular morning routine. Instead, we have a body that we can take anywhere and that we can tap into at anytime and see what we need and how we need to do it. We have our ancestral wisdom that lives deep inside of each of us. We can go back and recreate the rituals and rites that they used to create to bring about abundance and joy in their lives, the lives of their families and in their communities.
Relieved to hear this? Me too.
So why not give it a go and join me in time-honoured tradition with a modern twist? From 1 December I’m running a FREE 5 Days of Affirmations program to bring in the new season. During these 5 Days I will give you 5 Affirmations that you can use over summer to focus on the things that are important to you. I will also give you the tools and resources you need to make affirmations a ritual that you can use anytime to bring about a life you love.
PS: where you curious about the 24-hour and the 28-day hormonal cycle thing? Then download my FREE copy of Doing You in all The Seasons and get some insight into how you can use your hormonal cycle to gain balance and peace of mind.