Waking up before dawn is the most precious thing in my life.
To see the world waking up,
to hear the birds chirp and chatter,
to catch the first rays of the sun touching the face of the earth.
Each morning is a rebirth.
Darkness makes way for light.
Cold makes way for warmth.
After waking up, your head is as clean as it’ll ever be.
The mind is still untouched.
Like a pool of clear water, free of ripples.
Calm and receptive to bright idea’s and new inspiration.
There is only the fact of a new day.
Out of the darkness, this morning was given to you.
You didn’t ask for it,
There’s no reason for it,
And still, it is yours to witness.
It’s the most beautiful thing I can imagine, and I get to experience it every single day.
Isn’t that fucking amazing?
The power of Slow Mornings – 2 scenario’s
I’m unable to recall the moment I began to appreciate slow mornings like I do today, but what I do realise now is that before I got into it, I left so much life on the table.
Like any other normal person, I was taught to wake up because I had to be somewhere: kindergarten, school, university, work, whatever. In general, most people wake up this way, maybe even rushing through their mornings since they’ve hit the snooze once too often.
Of course, there is nothing inherently badbadbad about this. However, it pays to understand that the way you go over your mornings is nonetheless a choice; heck, perhaps it’s one of the most important ones you make every single day.
To put it bluntly, let’s imagine for a moment two different morning versions: a shitty one, and a… well… way less shitty one.
Scenario 1: A meh-whatever-morning
07:15 – The phone rings. You awaken by noise.
07:16 – Grab your phone. Hit snooze 3 times.
07:45 – Check what’s buzzing: Whatsapp, email, youtube, socials.
08:00 – Rushing into the shower. Make a quick coffee. Off to commute.
08:25 – Breakfast on-the-go. Bit overpriced though.
08:30 – Catch the train. More time for screens. Ready for the day.
09:00 – Perfectly on time, clocking in at work.
The evening: Dinner, television or Netflix, shower, phone-time in bed, sleep.
Observations: The first- and last action is to interact with the phone. This enforces a pattern of phone addiction, fractured attention, and continuous distractedness, and stress or anxiety.
On top of that, starting off the day with consuming digital media sets a reactive cognitive pattern for the rest of the day, resulting in even more stress.
Scenario 2: A Slow Morning
05:45 – Your wake-up light glows up, simulating a slow sunrise. Phone stays off.
06:15 – Your room has lit up, without noise, waking you up naturally.
06:20 – You get out of bed and make a cup of tea.
06:25 – You open your window and sit inside it, looking outside and drinking your tea, letting thoughts ruminate for a bit.
06:40 – You meditate & stretch for 20 minutes.
07:00 – Shower & Dress up.
07:10 – You cook up an amazing breakfast.
07:25 – Breakfast, watching the sunrise.
07:45 – You write a bit in your diary, small cup of coffee.
08:10 – Off to the train. You turn on your phone.
08:30 – Catch the train, listen to your favourite music while watching the world awaken.
09:00 – Perfectly on time, clocking in for work.
The evening: Skip the television, skip the Netflix, go to bed early, phone turns off 2 hours prior.
Observations: Waking up slowly, without disturbing your natural sleeping cycles, and without loud noise, creates calm and peace of mind, a great way to start your day.
By keeping the phone off for the first hours, you only deal with what is present in the current moment: your mind, your body, and the awakening of the world.
You have plenty of time to do the things you love, to get to know yourself better, to enjoy a healthy breakfast, and to witness the slow awakening of the world around you.
Such a morning will set the tone for the rest of the day, a tone of balance, existential courage, calm, and inner ease.
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The philosophy: Each morning is a rebirth
Here’s a philosophy on mornings, one that allows you to treat each day as a gift, never taking it for granted, stimulating presence and enjoyment:
Each day is a mini-life,
each morning a new rebirth,
each evening a mini-death.
To live each day as if one day is a lifetime of its own, you’ll be less tempted to fade away into the crippling illusion of permanence.
All elements in each morning have their own rhythm of awakening: The world around you, your body, your mind and your thoughts. Each evening that you go to bed, you may look back at your day and conclude whether it has been a joy, or whether you’d rather forget this day ever existed.
Whatever your case may be, factually, you can never be entirely sure whether you’ll wake up again the next morning Of course you probably don’t just randomly die overnight, but let’s be frank: we cannot ever be sure where it is that we’re going when we sleep.
Some people dream, some people black out, but whatever it may be, we have no control over whether we’ll wake up once again. In that sense, to go to sleep is a total leap of faith.
Extending this thought a little further: if you then wake up again, the next morning, you can rejoice in the fact that you get to experience another mini-life again: the morning as rebirth, the midday as your adult mini-life, the evening as the end of your mini-life.
By not taking any day for granted, you can more consciously treat your day as you’d want the general arc of your lifespan to be, within the given circumstances of tomorrow.
For me, I want each day that I’m alive, regardless of circumstances, to look something like this:
– The first part, I have awoken from nothingness and want to feel alive, vulnerable, full of inspiration and wonder. Just like a little child.
– The middle part, I want to work hard on the creation of meaningful things, foster connections with those I love and try to and understand myself and the world around me.
– The final part, I want to look back on and ruminate on beautiful memories, before all turns dark again.
This is how I’d like the general arc of my life to be, and with “my life” being a mosaic of many different days, it’s made manifest first thing in the morning: aliveness, vulnerability, inspiration and wonder.
The invitation: slow down your mornings
Now I’m aware that this all sounds fluffy as hell, somewhat, I guess? Maybe even cliché, in a way? But if you’d peak around the fluffy corner of this fluffed up fluffle-party, the main takeaway of this article is this:
One of the best ways to create an existence to your liking, is by owning your mornings. Mainly because the morning is the moment that sets the intention for the rest of the day.
Instead of going to bed late, watching television and distracting yourself with external bullshit, you could also go to bed 2 hours earlier, wake up 2 hours before you start your regular day/schedule, and create a morning for yourself that allows you to be present during the process of awakening.
This way’ you’ll catch the early morning ideas filled with inspiration and new thoughts, and set a great intention for the rest of your day.
The shift you’ll make? You’ll be waking up because you want to, not because you have to.
This might seem like a subtle difference, but in the end, it’s the difference between a life on repeat, and a life lived from awe and wonder. In the end, we’ll never know for sure when we’ll wake up again from our sleep.
Factually, we can only guess.
So each morning that you do wake up, cherish it with all the life you have <3
