Skip to content Skip to footer

The morning hours- a game changer! – Part 3

A habit of being in the ‘present’ early morning helps you practise mindfulness for the rest of the day. Many spiritualists spend their precious pre-dawn hours chanting, praying and meditating. They are then equipped to face the day’s myriad challenges.

Many of our emotional problems can be cured by these simple practises. It’s regrettable if we waste our precious morning hours on sleep, Facebook updates or the news. Social media activity simply captures the mind and compels us to react to others’ problems. Somebody else and something else invades our consciousness. You’ve let someone else throw pebbles into the lake of your mind!

Richard Whatley, a nineteenth century English Theologian and a prolific writer nailed it when he said, “lose an hour in the morning and you will spend all day looking for it.” Whatley was paralysed on his left side during his later years. Yet he continued his public duties and his fruitful writing. His morning habits helped him do this.

The gratitude exercise

Early morning gratitude practises keep a big margin between your happiness quotient and sudden daily upheavals. These practises provide a safety net as the mind threatens to go berserk during the day. Therefore the best defence against the incorrigible mind is simple: rise early and choose positive thoughts. Each morning we have these two choices – continue to sleep with dreams or wake up and chase our dreams. And if we want the latter, it pays to begin with a thought of gratitude. That’s the game changer!

When we thank God early in the morning for the gifts we are bestowed with, we enter the past, but with gratitude. We practise to see the good in life. Later, as the day unfolds one experience after another, the mind will learn to see the goodness in it. It’s a virtuous cycle that feeds on itself. You enter a sacred space of positivity and by your gratitude choices, invite happier experiences. Then as you continue your thanks-giving, you feed the positive circle and it grows bigger. 

If you closely observe the lives of some of the most influential leaders in history, you’d notice their zest for making the best of the early hours. Aristotle said 2300 years ago, “It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth and wisdom.” Two thousand years later, the same mood was echoed by one of the founding fathers of America, Benjamin Franklin, who said with good reason, “early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” And he said it graphically, “The early morning has gold in its mouth.”

Let’s seek this gold, today and always! Remember Tim Cook or Jeff Immelt has the same amount of gold that you have – twenty four hours! 

]]>

Leave a comment

0.0/5