You may have heard a lot of buzz about morning routines. They are based on the idea that how you start your day helps to shape how good it will turn out, which flows into your work, your relationships and ultimately, your life! These routines can give you energy, focus and motivation to help you take your life to the next level – AKA living your life to its fullest potential. They help you show you up as the best version of yourself, each and every day!
We absolutely loved the concept of a morning routine. But it just hasn’t been working for us. Our son’s sleep patterns are unpredictable, so we never know what time of the morning he will wake. That makes it almost impossible to keep a morning routine up!
That said, we found ourselves craving a ritual for our growing spiritual practice. So how did we create and maintain a regular routine with such unpredictable mornings?
Enter our nightly routine!
Although our sons bed time can be quite variable (ahhh parent life!), we do know that we will have a few hours to ourselves at nighttime. Hooray! We realised that taking time out for ourselves daily is SO valuable and routines do not have to be restricted to the mornings! Such an AHA moment! So, we decided to try a nighttime ritual instead, and this has proven to be incredibly beneficial for our wellbeing. We get to recharge our spiritual batteries AND wind down for the evening.
After all, sleep is the foundation of wellness – so we want to ensure we are priming ourselves to get the best possible nights rest. Why is this so important? Because this is the time when your body repairs and renews itself, and you can’t do that when you’re mind is racing a million miles an hour. Instead, we want to create positive feelings and thoughts so that we can go to sleep marinating in them!
Our Routine Broken Down
Our ultimate nightly routine – which we like to think of as a ritual – is a mixture of spirituality and self care. It renews our connection to the universe, and to ourselves. So let us take you through a typical night in our home.
Gratitude
You know we are huge believers in gratitude, and how it can change your life! We each have a gratitude journal, and every night before bed we write down a minimum of 3 things to be grateful for. To keep the gratitude flowing, we try not to write the same things every night. We are always externally grateful for family, health, friendships etc, so we like to think about all the other things in life that we are grateful for. On those extremely tough days where we struggle to find something to be grateful for, we go back to basics. It’s as simple as ‘I am grateful for this bed and pillow that I get to sleep on tonight’ or ‘I am grateful for having a roof over my head tonight’. We have found once you centre your mindset and bring the focus back to what you are grateful for, the words just start to flow. You realise that you have every you need, right now.
Acupressure (Shakti) mat
Our Shakti Mat is something that we didn’t know that we needed, and now, we would find it hard to live without!. A Shakti (which means energy) mat comprises of 6210 sharp-edge 5-mm plastic nails about 5 mm apart. It may sound slightly cray cray at first, but it turns out laying down on this 68cm x 42cm mat has a number of amazing health benefits such as:
- Reduced Pain
- Improved sleep
- Induced relaxation (by triggering the ‘rest and digest’ parasympathetic nervous system)
- Enhanced energy levels
For us, can leave us with a mildly euphoric kind of feeling as well! But overall laying on this mat each night is a great way for us to relax, unwind and prepare for a great nights sleep!
Essential Oils
We diffuse essential oils every single night. We like to put the diffuser on about half an hour before bed, and leave it on while we sleep (it automatically turns off after 4 hours). We diffuse essential oils because not only do the smell absolutely divine, they actually help us get a better nights sleep.
The diffuser works by dispersing the essential oil molecules through the air. When you inhale them through the air, they come into contact with the limbic system (the emotional centre of your brain, which is strongly linked to scent) and sends a message directly to the brain. Powerful stuff!
Diffusing is a quick, safe and effective way of letting the essential oils work their magic. As this is nighttime, we use a number of essential oils that help promote a relaxed and restful night’s sleep, and we love diffusing Lavender as it’s proven to have calming and relaxing qualities.
Note: it is important to realise that what works well for one person may or may not work well for you – we are all unique and experience the oils differently.
The key to using and experiencing the benefits of essential oils is to be sure that you are choosing only pure therapeutic grade oils. That’s why we choose DoTERRA. For more information, check out our page all about essential oils here.
Affirmations
Affirmations are all about tapping into the power of our minds in order to focus on the thoughts and desires we want in life. Everything we think, say and feel becomes our reality, so our affirmations are focused intentions. We also believe reading them out loud helps the message sink into our subconscious, rather than if you just read it. The main focus of our affirmations are:
- being the best version ourselves (as parents, partners, friends, sons/daughters)
- being of service (to you, the readers of our blog)
- financial abundance
Energy goes where our attention flows. And we’ve found our carefully considered affirmations help us focus on what we want in life, and take the next inspired step in order to achieve it.
Meditation and Tapping
Tapping (also known as EFT: emotional freedom techniques) has also become a key part of our routine and it really helps us identify and uncover things that are blocking us from the things we want in life. The reason we like to do a tapping before bed is sometimes we find it to difficult to fall asleep. Have you ever had the feeling of being so tired, yet wide awake? This could be because your mind is racing. and usually this can mean there is a negative block that you need to clear.
Completing a tapping at just before sleep to help you sleep can clear that negative emotion, restoring your bodies energy balance, and allowing you to get a restful nights sleep. If you want to know more about tapping and how it can help you check out this article.
To end the night, we like to put on a meditation to help us relax into a deep sleep. Meditation also helps you break the chain of your everyday thoughts, clearing your mind and allowing you to focus on your breath and the present moment. Most of the time we put the mediation on, and will be asleep within the first 10 minutes. The meditation however, will still be on in the background, so even though our conscious mind is not hearing the words, our subconscious mind is listening and recording every word. As with tapping, you can have meditations to focus on specific negative blocks you want to clear, or focus on a positive themes like self-love, acceptance.
Design your own ritual
So there you have it! You can have a beautiful ritual that recharges your spiritual batteries at any time of the day! Whether you are priming yourself for beginning of the day or the end, you can incorporate any one of these into your life!
We encourage you to design your own nightly (or morning if that works for you!) ritual – something that fills you up and will allow you to live your life to your fullest potential.
Have you tried any of these practices? We would love to know how you fit these into your morning/nightly ritual!
Nourishing Your Essence – always!
Matt and Nat
