Reclaim the Morning
Sadhana, morning rituals, and treating each day as a gift
Austrian psychologist Otto Rank believed human life to be defined by birth trauma: the separation of an infant from its mother, and the start of a lifelong struggle to return to the womb.
Rank believed that we reach this womb state each night we sleep—the bed symbolizes the womb, the blanket like the warmth of the belly, cradled and cared for in the dream state of consciousness. Then, each morning when we rise from slumber, we re-enter the world of form, birthed into new life. We are reborn.
If it ever feels hard to wake—when hitting the snooze button seems a far better option than facing the day—we are perhaps grazing a piece of this birth trauma. It hurts to be born. It hurts even more to become.
Mornings are a time of renewal, seeing the world in its vibrancy and terror with the eyes of an infant. Look at any religious or spiritual tradition, and you’ll find the importance of the morning time just before the sun-rises, or slightly after, when the veil between worlds is thinnest.
So, gentle reader, today I’d like to tell you about my morning routine, the most precious slice of time in my life. Recovering addicts must be reborn. We need a process that cares for our wounded inner child. We need a fresh start.
My morning routine has become one of the most vital aspects of my recovery. The version of what you’ll read below has gone through many variations and adjustments. It is tried and tested.
Part of me would prefer to leave the word “routine” out of the description—because, at this point, it is simply my morning. I’m wary of this reading as yet another optimization or bio-hacking signal, as you could rattle off a listicle of wellness benefits from every aspect of what I’ve got going on. But, alas, I’d be kidding myself to overlook the importance of the routine—it took me years to make this morning flow second-nature.
For a recovering addict and writer riddled with self-doubt, this is one area in my life where I have none. I go to sleep excited to wake up and put my routine into practice. I know I am doing something right. Dare I say, I have mastered this practice—the practice of carving out space to be reborn each day.
A good morning makes for a good day, and a string of good days makes for a good life. A morning routine, when done earnestly, becomes a ritual. When rituals get repeated for strings of days, they become a type of prayer.
Here’s mine.
REBORN.
“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” —Meister Eckhart
When I wake each day, I pull my eye mask ever-so-slightly onto my forehead, and assess the day’s light with my newborn eyes. Removing the eye mask reinforces my escape from the dream world, signaling to my body that I’ve entered back into waking life.
As best I can, I let any remnants of dreams or thoughts flow by, and focus instead on my senses. I stretch my arms and legs long like a cat. Rebirth is first noticing everything that is happening, how I’m feeling. If my thoughts begin to wander, I recenter them around beginning my morning ritual, knowing that when I make it through, I’ll taste my reward—my tea. That thought alone gets me moving.
Lengthen: BODY
“Move your joints every day. You have to find your own tricks. Bury your mind deep in your heart, and watch the body move by itself.” —Sri Dharma Mittra
The very first thing I do when I wake is roll out of bed onto the hardness of the floor. If I can, I’ll find a rug, collapsing onto its softer support. Other times, like when traveling, I fall onto a thin yoga mat, which I’ve laid out the night before to ease the transition.
After seven or so hours in the bed-womb, my body screams at me in all sorts of ways. My lower back is stiff. Hips feel stuck. Neck is tight. All reminders I’m not quite as spry and limber as I once was.
I do not know what it is about sleep and how I position my body that makes it so painful to wake, but I have learned by now that if I stretch first thing, I will be rewarded. That’s how every portion of my morning routine goes: a practice that might feel hard, but always reciprocates.
So, when I collapse onto the floor, I plop right into Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (this mouthful is “pigeon” pose) for some long, juicy lower back relief. From there I do several other yin (slow hold) style asanas (yoga poses), all aimed at loosening up the tightness in my legs and back. Some days, I’m still essentially sleeping as I melt into myself.
The difference between a yoga pose and a simple stretch is not the posture itself—it is the awareness we bring to that stretch. I carry that intention as I work through this practice, focusing on my bodily sensations and breath, rather than my thoughts. I complete this portion of my routine with Sirsasana (headstand), flipping my organs upside down, and recirculating blood flow for at least a minute.
Besides opening up my body and reducing pain, this asana sequence serves a deliberate purpose: to prepare myself to meditate.
Stillness: MIND
“The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.” —Sakyong Mipham
After slowly moving through my yoga sequence, when my body feels somewhere closer to neutrality than pain, I take my seat in meditation. I’ll start with breathwork, or pranayama. I draw from a variety of breathwork practices and lineages, but most are aimed at circulating and increasing energy. For a relentlessly introspective guy like me, this is what it takes to clear my thoughts and get my mind into a place where I can meditate, deeply. The breathwork offers a refreshingly singular focus: just breathe… hard!
After some big breaths, I meditate. Much has been written on meditation. I’ve trained in many different styles. I’ve used apps and timers, many of which were helpful when I was starting out. These days, I just sit with the intention of being present in my body, which usually means following the breath, as the breath is never in the future or past.
Some mornings, like on the weekends, I’ll sit for forty-five minutes, blissed out and able to access the subtle qualities of energy that if I wrote too much more about, you might unsubscribe. Other mornings, I swear, I do not sit for more than five breaths.
I close my meditation with prayer. If prayer is not your jibe, you can think of these as affirmations, for which positive psychology has proven many benefits. We also know that a parent offering words of affirmation to their baby will help them develop into a healthy child. I believe how we talk to our newborn selves each morning is equally important.
These are collections of words I have accumulated over the years, and I love them. They come from the many different constellations in my soul, the many worlds I straddle—like the A.A. Serenity Prayer, Hebrew blessings, and Sanskrit mantras. I wouldn’t dare share them all here, but I have written about a few.
This whole first part of the routine (typically) takes at least an hour. By this point, I only have one thing standing in my way between me and my big reward: a cold shower.
Cleanse: ACTIVATE
"He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life."—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m sure you have also heard about cold showers. I suspect it is not necessary to explain all their research-driven benefits: like lowering cortisol, boosting mood, and strengthening the immune system. How a cold shower (and a pair of running shoes) might be more potent than most antidepressants. But I will say this:
Outside of making your bed, there is no easier way to put a “win” in the Make It A Good Morning column than taking a cold shower. The fear and resistance will creep up before you take the plunge, but eventually, you learn to love them. If the thought of starting your day with cold water sounds psychopathic, there is also an environmental benefit, as I can guarantee you will not be lingering and wasting water.
After my shower, I’ve made it through the “hard” parts of my routine. My skin is cold and alive, and I’m far from tired—even on my worst days. I have already faced and overcome bits of resistance, and the sun is barely up. My cells feel activated, working fast.
I then head to the kitchen, where my hot water is just starting to boil, since I started the kettle just before I went into the shower, of course. Time for my reward.
Hydrate: RITUAL
“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”—Emily Dickinson
Finally, my tea. I’ve made it! My morning tea routine is a rather complex ritual and one I’ve grown to cherish. I was taught to drink fermented black pu’erh tea in the Gong-fu cha lineage.
Gong-fu—like Kong-fu—is The Art of Doing Something Well. Cha means tea. Gong-fu cha: The Art of Drinking Tea Well, usually done in a tea ceremony. I do not have time for a proper tea ceremony each morning, but every day for the last two years, I’ve brewed my tea.
One of the benefits of not spending wads of cash on drugs or alcohol is that I have no problem buying expensive, thirty-year-old aged teas from the Yunan province of China. When you get good quality tea leaves—from trees that are centuries old—each sip brings you closer to the misty forest mountains of Yunan, communing with nature and her elements. Pu’erh tea has fermented and anti-microbial properties, cell hydrating trace minerals, and daylong energetic qualities. It deserves its own essay—as each part of my routine does.
A hydrating or energizing caffeine ritual need not be this fancy (or expensive). Instead of pressing “play” on a coffee machine or heading to over-roasted Starbux, take the time to grind fresh beans and use a French press. Pour-over, even better. Use the same special cup or mug each morning. Focus on your hand movements and breathing.
The ritual is about the process. The time is dedicated to preparing the drink and bringing yourself into present moment awareness, which makes it taste all the more delicious.
Create: SPIRIT
“With a Spartan rigor which never ceased to amaze his landlord-grocer, Nietzsche would get up every morning when the faintly dawning sky was still grey, and, after washing himself with cold water from the pitcher and china basin in his bedroom and drinking some warm milk, he would…work uninterruptedly until eleven in the morning. He then went for a brisk, two-hour walk…” —Friedrich Nietzsche by Curtis Cate
Once I’ve made my tea, I bring my cup and thermos (filled with tea) to my desk. My entire routine has prepared me for this moment. I ensure my desk is orderly and organized. A clear space makes for a clear mind.
I open my journal and start scribbling analog notes to myself, alternating between a stream of consciousness flow, and responding to journaling prompts. Then, I open up a word document, and enter my novel. Or, on mornings like these, I type humble notes to you, dear reader.
On good days, I can write for two hours uninterrupted before having to heed to the day’s demands, my obligations, my requirements. These are—by great orders of magnitude—my two most productive hours of my day. Any creative work outside this window feels like just a sliver of my potential.
And for those wondering, I typically rise between five and six-thirty. I also skip breakfast and eat for the first time at lunch.
Nourish: SOUL
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”― Simone Weil
“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”—Simone Weil
Here’s the single most important part of my morning routine:
I do not look at my phone until I’ve completed my routine when I finished writing. No texts, no news, no nothing. Our devices have Do Not Disturb modes, and they should be utilized—liberally.
As we head into the final act of this essay, here’s the part that ventures squarely into the realm of advice.
Our modern world provides us with a never-ending barrage of stimuli. Greeting your day—your rebirth—with the madness of political news, dopamine hits from social media, or even texts from friends will start your day with a different quality than if you waited.
Please, remember: ninety-nine days out of one-hundred, all of that shit can wait until after your morning routine. My advice is not to disconnect from the world and obligations entirely. No. Be in the world. But simply to wait until you have done something for yourself before doing entering it.
Take time in your morning for ritual, however short. Creative work or journaling. Learning or reading. Making a cup of coffee. Or, at the very, very least, taking a few deep breaths before checking your phone.
Sabbath: RESET
“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” ―Maya Angelou
It takes time to build a morning routine that feels like a ritual. One of my newest additions to my morning routine is a Sabbath: one day per week entirely screen-free. A day without any morning routines.
You’ve probably heard about Shabbat, and even seen my curly side-burned brethren walking around on Saturdays, dressed in black. If you would have told Young Olo that I’d be practicing Shabbat, he’d have blown blunt smoke in your face and laughed you out of the room.
I guess I am a Modern Jew, so I take my Shabbat when I can: Saturdays or Sundays, no screens at all. Maps is OK, if necessary. Analog writing isn’t just OK, it’s great. But no keyboard typing. And credit is due where credit is due: I have one of my teachers and coaches, Tom Matty, to thank for encouraging a busy-body like me to begin this practice. That’s what it is: a practice. It’s gotten easier over time, a day I now eagerly anticipate.
These Sabbath mornings, my routine does not actually look much different. Sometimes, I’ll hang out in pigeon pose for what feels like hours. Other times, I’ll take a walk. Or just wake with my lady and read by the fire.
Each day we rise from sleep is a gift.
May we treat it as so.
Good read, Alex, thank you. When I first got sober my sponsor had me get up every morning, get down on my knees, do the third step prayer, and then make my bed. If I did nothing else that day, a made bed was its own accomplishment and it symbolized order. And between prayer and making my bed, it was 7-10 minutes that I gave to myself before just hitting the street running. The suggestion to pray had nothing to do with whether or not there was a God, much less whether I believed in one. The whole process was about ritual and routine upon waking. As my sponsor said early on, I would not be able to think my way into sober acting, I could only act my way into sober thinking and my morning routine and rituals are actions that impact my thinking and, therefore my emotional well-being. All of these many years later, my morning routine has become even more important and if I miss a day, I can feel it. I have a similar routine as yours, but I also enjoy the rituals of incense and candle lighting and having an altar on which to focus my attention. I start with body movement, often a run or pre-sunrise walk, stretching, a 30-45 minute sit and, journaling, including a daily gratitude list. And throughout the day I can return to the altar and drop into a 5-10 minute sit at any time I’m looking to recenter or ground myself. I generally chicken out when I consider the cold shower but thanks for reminding me about that. And a screen-free Sabbath observance? Sounds good on paper and I really want to give it a try – thank you.
Thank you. Wow.