Meditation has become one of the most important habits in my life.

It has helped to reduce my stress and anxiety and live more in the present moment.

I've never felt more connected to myself than I do when I'm meditating. Simply put, meditation has changed my life.

If you knew how to meditate, how would your life change for the better? If you're ready to live more mindfully and feel the benefits of meditation, take a deep breath and read this.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Are you ready to connect to your mind, body, and spirit on a deeper level? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE 21 Morning Rituals Cheatsheet! 

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Why should you meditate?

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has changed our lives forever. Isolation, job insecurity, and fear of the future have impacted people's mental health. During these uncertain times, meditation is a powerful mindfulness-based practice for finding calm amidst the chaos.

On a daily basis, the majority of your thoughts are focused on the past or the future. In this emotional state, it's easy to become a victim of your mind. Meditation shifts your focus away from these places and brings you back to the present moment.

If you've never meditated before, figuring out how to start can be overwhelming. For many years I was resistant to meditating.

Why?

I didn't understand how the process of meditation worked.

Intellectually I knew that meditating was good for me, but I couldn't connect with it. I decided to change my perspective. Instead of getting frustrated, I decided to get curious about meditation. I forced myself to meditate every day over an extended period.

Not surprisingly, I started noticing the profound benefits that meditation was having on my mental and emotional health. At that point, there was no turning back. I was hooked.

Some of the mental health benefits of meditation include better focus, improved self-esteem, and lower levels of stress and anxiety.

As an entrepreneur and overachiever, my mind is constantly moving.

I have a lot of responsibilities in my business, which can create anxiety. Meditation has helped me relax my mind, while still being productive. It's also given me more clarity and less brain fog while doing things like reading, learning, listening, and speaking to someone.

Why Is It Hard To Meditate?  

The reason why a lot of people resist meditation is that they are addicted to thinking. Your brain doesn't know how to slow itself down. Did you know that from the moment you are born, you process anywhere between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day?

If ruminative thinking is familiar to you, calming your mind and sitting in silence will be incredibly challenging. When you're first starting to meditate it's natural to experience boredom.

Meditation challenges you to practice being in the here and now instead of trying to escape or avoid it. I've struggled with a variety of different addictions throughout my life, everything from video games to pornography to binge eating.

The root cause of addiction is an inability to be comfortable with being. Meditation has helped me shift from doing mode into being mode. In being mode, my mind is forced to slow down because it has nowhere to go.

In this state, I have learned how to be fully present, which has given me a heightened sense of awareness. If I have thoughts, feelings, or sensations that arise in my body, I don't feel the need to change or resist them.

Instead, I observe them in a non-judgmental way.

Meditation teaches you to watch your thoughts and feelings come and go instead of getting attached to them.

If you are new to the world of meditation, I suggest you read Meditation For Beginners by Jack Kornfield. Inside his book, he has some great guided meditations. Having someone direct and guide you through the meditation process is extremely helpful when you're first learning to meditate.

When I first started meditating, I used Headspace and Calm. These apps helped motivate me to meditate and stay on track until I had the willpower to meditate on my own.

Meditation Technologies 

Muse Meditation Headband

With the Muse headband, you listen to a guided meditation while the headband scans your brainwaves. It will identify when your mind is overly active versus when it's calm. When your mind is active during your meditation, you'll hear birds chirping.

Conversely, when your mind is calm, the birds will stop chirping. At the end of your meditation session, you can identify what your meditation experience was like and track your progress.

The Brain Tap

The Brain Tap uses frequencies of light and sound for brain wave entrainment. You wear a headset over your closed eyes and headphones in your ears while experiencing these frequencies.

Essentially, it's a guided visualization and meditation that helps your brain to experience higher levels of alpha brain waves. The visualization puts you into an incredibly relaxed state of mind.

HeartMath Inner Balance

This is a heart rate sensor that attaches to your ear. It is accompanied by an app that teaches you how to shift your emotional state and create synchronicity between your mind, body, and heart. Not only does this device help reduce your stress, but it also helps bring awareness to your breathing and heart rate throughout the day.

How To Meditate

You want to make sure that you're in a comfortable seated position, whether that's in a chair or sitting cross-legged on the floor. If you choose to sit in a chair, I recommend sitting upright so that your back is fully supported.

There are many different ways that you can meditate, but one of the most common ways is with your eyes closed. Take a deep breath and allow your body to fully relax. Do a scan and bring attention to every part of your body.

I go through this process in the video above!

If you notice any tension, focus on melting into the tension. Doing this body scan will bring you into the present moment. Once you have done this, bring attention to your breath. Don't try to control your breath. Merely watch and observe it.

Through this practice, you'll notice that your mind will start to get busy.

This is your monkey mind in action.

When this happens, it's important that you don't get frustrated and react. Your only goal is to observe your thoughts. As soon as you become aware of what your thought loops are, simply return to your breath.

While you may enjoy 5 seconds to 1 minute of pure awareness, shortly thereafter, more thoughts will arise. Again, you want to observe your thoughts and be with them. When you're meditating, certain emotions will arise as well.

I like to identify where in my body I'm feeling emotions and get curious about them. At times, the feelings will be so strong that I'll have an urge to stop my meditation altogether. However, if I sit with the emotions long enough, eventually they fade away. The same thing happens with physical sensations that arise.

This is how to meditate for beginners.

Meditation teaches you so much about yourself. It brings awareness to how you think, feel, and move throughout your life. If you're a beginner, I recommend meditating for 10 minutes per day.

Research has shown that a lot of the long-term benefits of meditation occur once you're meditating for 20 minutes per day. If you can work your way up to that, fantastic.

A daily meditation practice transformed my life and it can do the same for you. Connect to your breath and go inward. The answers you seek are found in the stillness.

Are you ready to connect to your mind, body, and spirit on a deeper level? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE 21 Morning Rituals Cheatsheet! 

Every successful person engages in morning ritual habits. Do you?

I'm a big believer that how you start your day determines how you live your life. This is why I've been practicing morning rituals since I was 17 years old.

This one habit has literally transformed every aspect of my life and continues to do so to this day. For the last 15 years, I have been studying the morning ritual habits of some of the most successful people in this world.

My findings were so powerful that I decided to write a book on 67 morning rituals for your body, mind, and spirit.

Do you want access to 67 powerful morning habits for your body, mind, and spirit? CLICK HERE to purchase my new book!

Morning ritual habits have transformed my life.

As many of you know who follow me, I am always looking for ways to biohack my health and level up my life. For a while now I have had the desire to dive deeper into the world of morning ritual habits. This is why I decided to write a book on the topic. I was curious about all of the rituals that people may not even be aware of that I could share and implement into my own morning ritual.

During the writing process, my team and I did comprehensive research to determine the benefits of each of the 67 rituals that I talk about in my book. I have personally engaged in all of these rituals. Keep in mind that I don't practice all 67 rituals in one sitting. I don't recommend that you try to accomplish that feat either! It's just not realistic. However, I do engage in about 5-10 of them every day.

Keep in mind that there is no ideal way to start your day. Everyone is different. However, from my research, I found that there are certain morning ritual habits that successful people adopt. These rituals have been found to have powerful effects on their lives in the long-term.

As you can tell, I'm extremely passionate about morning ritual habits. However, I wasn't always a morning person. For the majority of my childhood, I would sit for hours on end staring at a computer screen playing video games, eating junk food and feeling horrible about myself. It's fair to say that I had low self-esteem and terrible self-discipline.

Not surprisingly, this way of life cost me my productivity, focus, and happiness.

However, the moment that I was introduced to morning rituals, the game changed. It seemed like such a simple concept. I didn't believe that it was possible to level up your life by simply creating new habits. I was wrong. Researchers have found that simple rituals can be effective at increasing confidence and alleviating anxiety. These were two aspects of my life that I had struggled with since I was a kid.

When I was introduced to the self-development world, I learned that if I wanted to change my life, I had to start by changing myself. This was a massive wake-up call. I realized that I had a lot of unhealthy habits. The reality is that habits can be your servants or masters. If you don't take the time to connect to your inner world every single day, how do you expect to show up for anyone else?

Unfortunately, a lot of people choose the former. They roll out of bed, slam a pot of coffee, eat junk food, complain about their lives, and stress out to the point of becoming burnt out. They may have the desire to break these bad habits, but they don't know how. These patterns of operating have become so ingrained in their systems to the point that they feel normal.

Even though bad habits are toxic in nature, they continue to provide some type of benefit to people's lives. Simply stopping a bad habit will not work. In my experience, the only way that you can break a bad habit is by replacing it with a good one.

One of the most effective ways of changing your belief patterns is through practicing morning ritual habits.

By waking up every day and nourishing your my mind, body, and spirit, you will feel calmer and more in control of your emotions. Keep in mind that, when it comes to morning ritual habits, there is no gold standard. You need to find a routine that works best for you and your life. I encourage you to experiment with what feels good and monitor your state throughout the day.

If you want all 67 of my morning ritual habits for your body, mind, and spirit, CLICK HERE!

Below are 7 life-changing morning ritual habits that I talk about in my book and that I personally engage in on a daily basis. These rituals (and 60 others) have allowed me to be unstoppable in every area of my life. Again, find what works for you, but I encourage you to test these out and see how they make you feel.

1. Practice Yoga

The benefits of yoga are limitless – you get to relax and reflect, all while doing something good for your body. Keep a yoga mat close to your bed and let this be the first thing you do once you get up. You don't have to be a yogi or a yogini to practice yoga. While there is no wrong time to practice yoga, I have found that doing practice in the morning is the best time. After a long night of sleeping, it's a great way to wake up your body. Practicing yoga increases your flexibility and supports your posture, which helps to support your alignment. This is especially important if you are someone who sits in front of a computer all day.

While yoga is good for the body, it is equally as good for the mind. Before starting a busy day, yoga gives you a chance to unwind and focus on your own energy. What “you” do you want to show the world today? Yoga gives you the chance to start the day revitalized and ready to put your best foot forward.

In the words of Ymber Delecto, “Yoga is invigoration in relaxation. Freedom in routine. Confidence through self-control. Energy within and energy without.”

2. Use a Foam Roller

While yoga may help you prepare for the aches and pains you may feel from a long day of work, a foam roller does wonders for the pains that are already present. While few of us have the time to invest in frequent deep tissue massages, a foam roller provides the same pleasure. Though it might take a while to get used to the foam roller’s unique sensations, it will help your body heal from the stress that it takes on every day.

The rolling helps stimulate blood flow to release knots throughout your body. You can literally foam roll almost any part of your body. While this might sound too good to be true, you can often get a foam roller for less than $20 at any store that sells fitness goods. There are also an endless amount of options on Amazon, from the most basic designs to complex textures meant for those with intense workouts. Keep your foam roller close to your yoga mat so that you can get in a yoga session and a foam rolling session before you even leave your bedroom!

3. Recite Positive Affirmations

It is so easy to be controlled by limiting stories and beliefs. My limiting beliefs used to control my world, so much so that I was extremely anxious and depressed. It wasn't until I started to condition my mind with positive and uplifting thoughts that my internal landscape started to shift.

I am living proof that reciting positive affirmations works. This isn't to say that I don't still have negative thoughts from time to time. However, these thoughts are fleeting. Just like building a muscle, you need to actively strengthen your mind every single day. If not, your inner critic will take center stage. 

Affirmations work their magic by shifting disempowering belief systems and replacing them with more empowering ones. To make affirmations work, you need to know which belief(s) you want to change. Do you lack confidence, have body issues, or question whether or not you even deserve success? Find an area of life that you want to develop. If you make positive affirmations an integral part of your morning ritual, your mind will start to believe them to to be true.

Here are some of the morning ritual affirmations that I say to myself every day. 

• I always focus on and find the good in everything.
• Life doesn’t happen to me, it happens for me.
• In order to earn more, I must learn more.
• If I change, everything will change for me.
• The past does not equal the future.

Choose affirmations that resonate with you. If you need help, there are thousands of affirmations online to choose from. You can recite them out loud to yourself in the mirror while you are getting ready for work. Similarly, you could integrate them into your yoga practice and silently repeat them to yourself while you move your body. 

4. Meditate

You don't have to be a guru to experience the benefits of meditation. I've got to be honest… when I first started meditating, I didn't connect with the practice on an emotional level. I knew that it was a “healthy” thing to do, but I couldn't wrap my head around how sitting in silence with your eyes closed could change your life. However, once I forced myself to meditate on a daily basis, over time, I was hooked.

I started to notice the effects that it was having on my mental and emotional state. Sitting in silence for 10 minutes every day has been a game changer in my life. It has allowed me to effectively cope with stress and find inner calmness and clarity, which has become my natural state of being.

The best way to get started with meditation is to just start!

Find a quiet and calm place, void of distractions. The moment that I wake up I prop up my pillow and go inward. I focus on my breath and the present moment. I don't try to force my mind to go blank. That is impossible. Instead, I become an active observer of my thoughts. I notice what comes up and then I allow my thoughts to come and go. 

If you’ve never practiced meditation before, spend a few mornings finding what suits you best. Some people like to meditate in total silence, while others like to listen to relaxing music or sing along to mantras. If you can start your day with a relaxed mind, free of worry, you are winning at life. Remember that every day is a new opportunity to start fresh. Meditation gives you that freedom.

5. Start Journaling 

In my experience, journaling first thing in the morning is a great way to make sense of your thoughts. This process is not only cathartic but it gives you an opportunity to check-in with where you are and how you feel.

Before you engage with the external world, why not take a look at what's happening in your inner world? You don't have to write a thesis. Even one sentence is enough. If you give yourself the space to write freely, you will surprise yourself how much you have to express.

Journaling has become my favorite mind dump exercise. It helps me connect with my feelings, especially when I'm struggling with something that I just can't find the answer to. Sometimes it's impossible to express how you feel in words. Writing is a great alternative for self-expression.

As part of my morning ritual, I engage in an exercise where I write in my Five Minute Journal. Using the science of positivity to improve happiness, this journal is structured in such a way that inspires you to start and end each day with gratitude.

As part of this process, I ask myself three questions that allow me to set an intention for my day ahead. Not only does this make me feel more grounded, but it also helps me create more empowering beliefs. The next time that you journal, don't overthink it. Just allow your thoughts to flow and don't give yourself a limit to your creativity. Your thoughts are important. Honor them. By doing so, you honor yourself as well.

6. Engage In Random Acts of Kindness

I've talked a lot about how to nourish yourself before you start your day. Without a healthy sense of self, it is difficult to have the energy to give to others. However, there comes a point when you need to go out into the world and connect with others. A great way of getting yourself out of a bad mood and lifting your spirits is by engaging in random acts of kindness.

Every day that I wake up I ask myself, “How can I be of service to others?” There’s no denying that giving makes you feel good. If you can instill some happiness in your day and in someone else's simultaneously, you are winning.

You don’t have to join a non-profit and travel to Africa to make a difference. Start in your community. It can be as easy as paying for the coffee of the person standing behind you in line. Similarly, you could hold the door open for someone. It's that simple. When someone is the recipient of your random act of kindness, they may even pay it forward, creating a beautiful exchange of love. In my experience, there is no greater feeling than knowing that you have made someone's day brighter.

7. Celebrate Yourself

How often do you celebrate yourself? Every day, once a week, once a month… or worse, never? I think that all of us could take more time to celebrate how far we've come, no matter how small the milestone may be. Thinking about yourself in a positive way is one of the best things that you can do for your health and well-being. If you want the world to celebrate you and your gifts, then you first must learn to accept yourself unconditionally.

Let's be real… life can be hard sometimes. It is during your lowest moments when you need to love yourself the most. Research shows that recognizing your own achievements has the power to boost your motivation and performance. Praising yourself may feel awkward at first, especially if you don't do it enough.

Just keep in mind that the celebration of oneself is a lifelong journey. Just take one day at a time. You're doing a great job. You are enough. Make sure that you remind yourself of this every single day.

A morning ritual will supercharge your mind, body, and spirit.

I'm excited to finally share the 67 rituals that I have personally tested and utilized at different stages of my life. The benefits that I have received from all of them have been incredible. If you feel called to, I encourage you to head over to Amazon and check out my book! It is a simple and easy-to-read book that will help kickstart your healthy habits. Think of it as a resource guide with rituals that you can easily integrate into your morning routine or pull upon them when you are looking for motivation.

You can purchase it as a Kindle book or as a paperback book. I've made it very inexpensive so that it is accessible to everyone. It sells for $2.99 on Kindle and the paperback version is $5.99.

I promise that if you commit to engaging in morning ritual habits, you will start feeling more energized, excited and passionate about your life. A daily morning ritual has the power to take your life to a whole new level. What activities will you engage in today that will nourish your mind, body, and spirit?

Do you want access to 67 powerful morning habits for your body, mind, and spirit? CLICK HERE to purchase my new book!