Transcript (edited for better reading experience)

Hello hello. Welcome back to The Feel Good Factor. I’m Susmitha Veganosaurus. I hope the first week of 2020 has been wonderful for you so far.

What’s the thing about New Year’s that makes everybody want to set new year’s resolutions? *laughs*

There’s this sense of hope and motivation that we all feel when we begin a new year. Like we’ve been offered this big reset button to just let go of all things that didn’t serve us in the previous year and move on into a fresh new beginning.

But guess what, we don’t need a new year to get a fresh new beginning. Every single day, every single morning we are offered a reset button. So we can start our day with a new feeling, new intentions, a fresh new beginning.

The way we spend our mornings sets the tone for our entire day. So mornings are extremely important, or rather, feeling good in the mornings is extremely important.

It’s a very useful habit to have some great morning rituals. Now, these rituals don’t need to be anything fancy, and they don’t have to be the same repetitive thing every single day. That’s the beauty of them. There is so much variety available for you. All you need to do is make sure that whatever activities you fill your morning with, they leave you feeling really good, positive and full of hope and energy. Because this positive, healing, magical energy gives you the boost to go through the rest of the day in that high vibration.

I’ll admit, for the longest time, all I would do is, as soon as I opened my eyes, I’d open my smartphone.

Actually, my eyes wouldn’t even be open and I’d be reaching for my smartphone. And then, I’d get online and then just dive into the internet. I’ve been working very, very hard to overcome this habit. I’m not perfect at it. But I’ve been able to consciously avoid the internet after waking up for half an hour, fifteen minutes, sometimes even an hour or two. And well, when it’s an hour or two, I feel very, very proud of myself. *laughs*

On the days when I have not been very disciplined (where I was saying that fifteen minutes after I wake up I get online, on those days), what I make sure to do is at least one or two positive healing practices before I touch my phone. So doing even that much helps a lot. And then on the days where I’m doing these morning rituals, and I’m so excited, involved in them, and I just get into the flow of things, that’s when it goes on for a couple of hours and it feels so good. Then I don’t feel the need to get onto the internet at that point of time.

A few really simple, good things to begin your day with. One is gratitude.

So gratitude lists. It is recommended that you take a book, pen, paper and sit and write out whatever good feelings you have. And then, read it out again and again.

Yes, great. All that is well and good. But if you’re not able to do any of that, at least what you can do is just lie there in bed as soon as you wake up and think of all the good things. Think of all the positive things that you’re grateful for. It could be as simple as being thankful for a good night’s sleep or the roof over your head or the great dinner that you had last night or the delicious breakfast that is waiting for you.

You know, it could be anything. It could be simple, or it could be big. Feeling grateful for your successes and family and joy. And all the wonderful huge things that are happening for your life right now. It could be anything. But starting off with that feeling of gratitude is a simple and effective way to begin the day.

Another thing is affirmations.

I’ve been reading Gabby Bernstein’s Super Attractor book. And in one of the first few chapters, in the very first chapter, actually, Gabby has listed a set of morning affirmations. Daily morning affirmations.

Ever since I read those affirmations, every single day I say them. So if I can say them out loud, I say them out loud. Or I say them in my mind, or I read them. Actually, I’ve recorded them in my own voice and I listen to them if I can’t say them out loud. I make sure that somehow these affirmations are a part of my life as soon as I wake up in the morning, and this really helps.

Saying affirmations every day is a very simple and extremely effective habit. They fill me with a sense of motivation, hope. I even feel very powerful when I say them. And the beauty of affirmations is you can totally make them up yourself.

To start off with, if you don’t know how to go about writing affirmations or saying affirmations, you can look them up online. You’ll find a lot of really good pre-done ones out there for you. But over time, you can even start writing your own affirmations which are customized for you and your life.

Now, possibly in the future, I’m going to do a whole episode on affirmations. But the one tip that I can share with you right now is, make sure that the words are extremely positive. That’s it.

So make sure your affirmations are focused more on what you do want versus what you don’t want. That is the important thing to remember. And then the rest is really easy.

Being thankful, saying affirmations, these are all things you can do right in your bed. While you’re lying down, you can just practice these things.

Another thing you can do is of course, sit up and meditate.

Again, all you have to do is just sit up in your own bed and start meditating. Meditation is a beautiful, positive, healing, centering, grounding practice to have in the morning.

If you’ve never meditated before, it’s easy to find guided meditation audios online. I really like the insight timer app, you can install it. There are thousands and thousands of teachers from around the world who have recorded various talks and guided meditations on it.

There are also a lot of simple sounds, bells and music available on the app so you can just listen to those also. A great way to start is with guided meditations. And over time, once you start doing guided meditations, once you are in tune with the energy of meditating, then you can get into the habit of meditating by focusing on just your breath, for example. And not really be dependent on an app or any other external factor for it.

Yeah, left up to me, I’d happily stay in bed and be meditating and saying affirmations and doing gratitude lists all day long. But of course, you know, at some point one needs to get out of bed.

So the first thing I do once I get out of bed is oil pulling. It’s a very healthy habit. It has a lot of benefits.

So you take a spoonful of oil, preferably cold pressed oil, and I prefer coconut oil, and then just put it in your mouth and swish it around and swish it around and swish it around. Ideally, you need to do it for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. But to begin with, even if you do it for five minutes, great! You just need to make the habit. That’s it.

I have someone in mind who is an expert on oil pulling and I’m going to be interviewing her soon on the podcast. Meanwhile, why don’t you look up Oil Pulling online? It’s a very healthy, healing practice.

You know, a lot of people think it’s only for oral health, but it has a lot of other benefits also. So look it up. And then, I’m going to bring in my friend who is a pro at oil pulling to talk to you all about the ways you can do it and all the benefits that it has.

I know a lot of people have the habit of doing some form of exercise, you know going to the gym or doing yoga or any other exercise in the morning. And that’s great. It’s wonderful if you are able to do that.

But even if you aren’t, it is important to make your body active. Do some stretches even while you’re in bed.

You can start stretching, it’s really simple and easy. So do some stretches. And then once you get out of bed, stretch around a bit. Move your body around, even walk around your house, a few rounds. You know, just walking around the house just to get the blood flowing there, that is a great great way to begin and fill yourself up with good energy.

Being creative is another thing that brings us all into this energy of joyfulness and peace and contentment.

Definitely having some creative activity as a part of your morning routine is very, very beneficial. You can even take like a little book and do some doodling, simple sketching. Or you know, if you are inclined towards doing other creative activities, like painting or sculpting or anything else, do it.

Just make sure you’re in that zone where you’re lost into the work that you’re doing. Into whatever it is you’re creating. That really helps to calm and center you before you begin the day.

I like to combine my creative activity along with having my morning beverage. *laughs*

If I’m being really good, then it’s probably gonna be some kind of herbal tea, which is very rare. Usually I go for my morning Chai. I love Chai, so that’s what I do. I have consciously stayed away from drinking coffee first thing in the morning. It fills me with the jittery kind of energy. It’s fine, it’s good to have caffeine a little later in the day, but try not to do it first thing in the morning.

I haven’t been able to avoid caffeine completely. So I stick to tea, or sometimes green tea. But while sipping on this beverage is a very, very nice time to sit and do a creative activity.

My morning creative activities can be writing, it can be photography. When I say photography, I mean editing pictures also included. And creating posters and things like that. I like to open out my affirmations and doodles book. I have this little notebook where I’ve been writing an affirmation and then doodling and drawing around it, and that gives me a lot of pleasure.

So I like to combine that along with drinking my morning beverage. While sipping on that, once in a while I’ll keep drawing and writing, and it puts me in a really blissful, calming, comfortable zone.

So definitely make sure, even if you’re spending ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, make sure you put yourself in a creative zone for at least a short while every morning.

And finally spending some time to just close your eyes, sit, and picture your day. The rest of the day as it would unfold, or as you would want it to unfold.

That really helps too. What you’re doing is setting intentions. It’s a little different from the affirmations. Affirmations can be the same thing every single day, whereas this ritual of setting intentions would be specific to that particular day.

So you can sit down and picture where you’ll be going, who you’ll be meeting. The tasks that are ahead of you, the work that you will need to complete today. The projects you have ahead of you. Anything at all.

Even if you are on a holiday, what you would be doing the rest of the day on a holiday, it’s good to sit and picture that in the most positive, joyful, best possible manner. And picture all the things unfolding the way you would want it or probably in a better way than you would even expect it

Along with setting intentions, it’s also good to do some kind of a shielding exercise or ritual.

An energy shielding ritual where you set the intention that you are protected from any low vibe energy. And that only the highest vibrational, most useful energy for you is the only thing that will touch you through the rest of the day. That is a very, very good thing to do before you begin your day or before you step out of your house for the day.

I do have a protective shield meditation on insight timer right now. And at some point, I’ll also share it here on the podcast so it will be useful for all of you.

So yeah, those were some of my ideas for morning rituals to include in your routine everyday before you get out into the world or before you allow the world to come into your life through the internet.

Have a wonderful day. And I would love to hear what your morning rituals are, what your morning routines are. You can leave a message for me on instagram. I’m Veganosaurus on Instagram.

Thank you so much for listening to The Feel Good Factor. I’m Susmitha Veganosaurus. Talk to you soon. Bye!

Transcribed by Otter.

---

Susmitha Veganosaurus

“I read voraciously, find humour in most things, and I’m most in my element when I’m teaching, writing, and playing with clay. I believe authenticity and kindness are the key to a joyful world. Sign up for my free newsletterwhere I share Life and Business Tips, Vegan Hacks, Holistic Guidance, and more.

Vegan cuisine and holistic business building are my two biggest passions. If you’re looking for guidance with vegan cooking, or want to grow your conscious business with joy and fulfilment, explore ways we can work together here.”

---