Switching Focus to the Physical –
The Importance of Morning Rituals
When you are asleep, you are free from the constraints of material reality and can travel to other worlds, places, and times. My Elders refer to this state as traveling through the Dream Time. As a traveler, you can gather information, experiences, processes, and tools that can improve day-to-day-living. But, you have to be willing to bring this help back to your physical life so that your body can integrate and live these patterns. The easiest way to facilitate this integration is to create an imaginary boundary between the Dream Time and the Day Time. Creating and using a daily morning ritual is one way to bridge non-physical and physical reality for your body. (Again, if you haven’t worked with me before, note that being alive on Planet Earth is all about having a body and enjoying physical life.)
Creating A Morning Ritual
Morning rituals are as varied as the people who use them. Components can be as simple or as complex as you wish, but the best rituals are ones you can enjoy on a regular basis. So, include activities that you enjoy such as listening to music, drinking water, stretching your body, and so on.
My Morning Rituals
Over the years I have brought myself into the NOW using morning rituals. These are the building blocks I use to create mine:
Gratitude for My Body and Having Another Physical Day
As soon as I wake up completely, I thank my body for being here and I thank Infinite Source for another day on Earth. When my roomie and my cats come into say, “Good morning,” I also thank them out loud for being here, for choosing to have bodies now, and for choosing to share the Earth experience with me. What I notice since I began this practice daily is that everyone’s health has improved, and we have a higher degree of harmony in our relationships (For example, two of the cats that used to fight don’t fight anymore.) By the way, an alternative to speaking your gratitude is writing in a gratitude journal. Every client that begins working with me actually gets this daily practice as their first assignment.
Closing the Door to the Dream Time
If you want to live an authentic life filled with goodness, when you are awake, you want your entire focus to be on your body and what you experience together during your day. This cannot happen easily unless you close off the routes you use to travel in the Dream Time. So, I suggest that the second part of your ritual solidifies your intention to remain in the here and now experience. For example, I do this by closing all doorways, portals, gateways, conduits, throughputs, and energy constructs that I use for traveling into the non-physical. Closure can be done by intention, visualization, words, snuffing out the candles you light when you go to sleep, or whatever mechanism that allows you to feel completely present here and now. (Of course, the boundary between physical and non-physical is imaginary. But, it is extremely important to your body’s successful experience that you focus on your body and your material life when you are awake.)
Clearing Residual Energies
Since you may be traveling through different worlds, universes, dimensions, spaces, and times when you are asleep, you can pick up energies that aren’t native to this world, dimension, space, and time. While these energies are not necessarily harmful, they are foreign and, therefore, not particularly helpful. So, I recommend that you clear all residual energies from the Dream Time and ask them to return to their appropriate spiritual realm. Again, there are many methods which will return energies to point of origin. Experiment with visualizations, words, smudge, herbs, etc. until you find a practice that you enjoy on a daily basis.
All of Me Here Now
As you travel through the non-physical, you will connect with other versions of you as well as catch up with pieces of your “soul” that you temporarily may have displaced during times of physical, emotional, and mental trauma. So, it is a very good idea to invite all aspects of yourself that serve you and your body’s highest and best to return to you clean, clear, whole, and full of goodness. By intending you and your body’s highest and best, you will insure that this practice serves you well.
Intention for the Day
Instead of leaving the theme for the day to chance, I suggest that you let the Universal know your intention for the day. To me, any verbal statement that gives you confidence and surety about you is a wonderful intention.
Example: “I intend for my body to experience more abundant goodness and joy every moment today.”
Focusing on the Physical
In order to ground you in your body, round out your morning ritual with a physical activity you enjoy – stretching, drinking your favorite beverage (I love to drink a cup of coffee out on my deck.), having a shower and changing clothes, playing with your children or pets, giving your partner a hug, light exercise, yoga, QiGong. Of course, the best grounding is standing barefoot directly on the Earth. So, open yourself up to the possibility of connecting to the Earth beneath you and feel her love come up through your feet. You will be glad you did.
Conclusion
If you are not in your body completely, how effective are you really? Or even more bothersome, if you aren’t in your body at all, who is in the driver’s seat? By taking 10 or 15 minutes to set your day up, you can increase your material effectiveness exponentially, because you will know without a shadow of a doubt that you are completely in your body and the captain of your own ship of destiny.
Photo courtesy of Deviant Art.