A Morning Practice to Find Your Purpose

How we begin our day sets the tone for what follows. Reiki practitioner Kelsey J. Patel offers this simple yet powerful practice for beginning your day with presence and purpose.

I never get out of bed—no matter how early I have to wake up or how late I might be for a meeting—without setting an intention or a prayer for myself for the day. When you clear your mind at the dawn of the day and set an intention for how you want the day to go, it helps to shift and clear any negative or cluttered morning vibes. Begin your day with a calm center, and you can carry that calm throughout your day.

Morning rituals can transition you from sleep to an expectant positive energy that prepares your body and mind for all the things you do. Here are some things to include in your morning ritual. Try some or all of these tomorrow morning:

• As soon as you wake up, even before you sit up, place your hands on your heart and take a few deep breaths.
• Keeping your hands over your heart, think of three things you are grateful for (no matter what you are feeling when you wake up).
• With your hands still on your heart, begin feeling your heartbeat and the breath flowing through your body. See yourself receiving love, health, and abundance throughout the day.
• Scan your body, starting at your toes and noticing how each part of you feels. Do you detect tightness, pain, tension, ease, relaxation, good feelings anywhere? Move from your feet up your legs, hips, stomach, chest, shoulders, arms, hands, neck, head. Whenever you sense pain or tension, imagine filling up that part of you with the energy of healing and love.
• When you feel relaxed, sit up in your bed slowly, and place your hands on your legs or in a prayer position in front of your heart.
• Begin to visualize how you’d like to see yourself throughout the day.
• Ask for guidance, support, and anything else you feel you are open to receiving. I like to end by using the prayer from A Course in Miracles: What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say, and to whom? You can use this or any other prayer that helps you set out with a feeling of purposefulness and direction.

Excerpt from BURNING BRIGHT: Rituals, Reiki, and Self-Care to Heal Burnout, Anxiety, and Stress. Copyright © 2020 by Kelsey J. Patel. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

For more morning inspiration, read “Create an Intentional Morning Routine.”