Rise and Shine: A Mindful Morning Routine for Women and Mothers

This morning routine is designed to help you start your day with intention and mindfulness, allowing you to nurture your mind, body, and soul. By practicing self-compassion, gratitude, setting intentions, and honoring your menstrual cycle, you can cultivate positivity, resilience, and balance within yourself, ultimately prioritizing your overall well-being.

Transcript

Welcome to Follow Your Gut, the podcast where women like you are empowered to take charge of your family's health and happiness. I'm your host, Juniper Bennett, formerly known as Sarah. I'm the founder and CEO of Only Organics, and as a momma to four, I have personally gone through the ups and downs of Navigating, the sea of misinformation and the runaround from our medical system while caring for my family's health and well-being. This podcast is dedicated to educating and empowering you on the significance of gut health and how it affects everything from your family's sleep to your mood and everything in between. By understanding the foundation of your wellness and the causes of common yet preventable symptoms, you can achieve a deeper level of health and happiness for your family. Join me as we explore the world of gut health and enhance our lives from the core of our well beings, all while honoring our powerful intuitions. I'm so happy you're here. Let's dive into today's episode.

Welcome to Episode 58, a Mindful Morning routine for Women and Mothers. Today's episode is a little bit different and is designed to help start your everyday with intention and mindfulness. I'm going to guide you through a simple routine that you can practice right when you wake up in the morning. The best part is you won't need anything other in a few moments to yourself where you can close your eyes and embark on these practices within your own mind. You can listen to this episode every morning or as often as you feel the need for a mindful start to your day. To be perfectly honest, the inspiration for this episode came from a place of my own need. The other morning, I found myself wishing so badly I had a simple go to guided practice that I could do. One that would help me set my intentions for my day that I could do right from bed. We co sleep with our youngest and now that we are living in our bus, my whole family is literally within a few feet of me. And having something simple that I can go to every morning that is just for me, that I can do before anyone else is even awake, feels like I am arming myself with a superpower. I have so many inspiring books and audiobooks, but so often choosing between them and deciding on the one that best meets my need for that particular day is enough for me to just not commit to setting my intentions. So, I hope this episode provides you with just that a go to practice that you can use every morning to set your intentions.

 Before we dive into the practices, I want to acknowledge how something like this relates to the foundational topic of this podcast gut Health our mind has a significant impact on our overall wellbeing, including the health of our gut bacteria. Stress directly impacts our gut health, which then impacts our hormones, our immune system, food cravings, sleep, and everything in between. So it's important to understand how our thoughts and mindset influence the complex ecosystem residing within our gut. When you allow yourself to cultivate a habit of taking just a few moments at the beginning of every day to nurture your soul, validate your feelings and set your intentions, you are more likely to handle stress in a more grounded way, which fuels the full, beautiful cycle of nurturing your overall well being.

Let's begin by taking a big, deep breath together. I'd like you to close your eyes and allow yourself to settle into this moment to be right here. Become aware of your breath. Feel it flow in and out. Scan your body and notice any areas of ten or discomfort. Send your breath and attention to those areas, allowing them to soften and release. Find a point of pain or tension in your body. This could be your lower back, your heart, your soul, your baby toe. Anywhere you are feeling discomfort, take a big, deep breath and visualize all of your air going straight to that point of pain. You're going to breathe in for one, two, three, four seconds and hold it. Now visualize all of that beautiful clean air circulating around that point of pain and then are you ready? Whoosh it out in one big breath. And visualize the pain leaving your body with that air. Take the time to do this throughout the day. Connect with your body's wisdom and give it the care and nourishment it needs pause whenever you need. Take a big deep breath. Visualize that breath grabbing hold of any pain, whether that's negative thoughts or physical pain in your body and hold it. Circulate that pain or that negativity and blow it the heck out of your body.

Now we are going to simply validate and acknowledge ourselves. Where are you right now, both physically and emotionally? With your eyes closed, visualize your space. How does the energy around you feel? Is it light? Is it dark? How are you? How did you sleep? Do you feel rested right now? Or is your night really restless? Do you feel any resentment in your mind or in your body right now? Are you willing to let any built up negativity go? Or do you want to hold on to what is weighing you down? Sometimes we need to do this, and it's okay. There isn't a right or wrong answer right now. We are simply meeting ourselves exactly where we are by acknowledging where we are, how we feel, and our capacity.

We are going to transition now from validating ourselves to focusing on gratitude. Bring to mind three things either a person feeling or experience that you are grateful for today. These can be big or small, significant or seemingly trivial as you acknowledge them. Feel a sense of appreciation and warmth within your heart. Gratitude is a powerful tool for cultivating positivity and shifting our perspective. I'm going to give you a second to really experience that you are grateful for today. These can be big or small, significant or seemingly trivial as you acknowledge them. Feel a sense of appreciation and warmth within your heart. Gratitude is a powerful tool for cultivating positivity and shifting our perspective. I'm going to give you a second to really hold on to those three things a person, a feeling, or an experience that you are so deeply grateful for today.

Now, let's set an intention for this day. I want you to ask yourself how do I want to show up today? Reflect on the qualities you want to embody, such as patience, kindness, kindness, resiliency. What feelings? What qualities do you want to embody? Day visualize yourself. Embodying these qualities and see how they can positively influence your interactions and your experiences throughout the day. Really feel it right now. As one of my favorite authors, Jen Sinchero, says in her book you are a Badass, our thoughts become our words, our words become our beliefs, our beliefs become our actions, our actions become our habits, and our habits become our realities. This quote reminds us of the profound connection between our thoughts and our reality. By cultivating positive and empowering thoughts, we can shape our experiences and emotions throughout the day. It's time to take a moment now to practice self compassion. Please place a hand over your heart and send yourself love and compassion. Remind yourself that you are doing the best you can and you deserve to be loved and cared for by you. Embrace any imperfections or challenges with kindness and understanding. You are enough, exactly as you are right now. There are no buts or whens. Right now, you are enough.

Now let's transition our focus to honoring your menstrual cycle. What phase of your cycle are you in right now? Are you menstruating? Are you in your follicular? Are you ovulating? Or are you in your luteal phase? Each phase of your menstrual cycle brings its own energy and needs. 1s During menstruation, embrace rest and gentle selfcare. Walk instead of run. Sip tea instead of coffee. Restorative yoga overflow in the Follicular phase, focus on setting intentions and planning for the weeks ahead. During Ovulation, nurture your creativity and social connections. In the Luteal phase, prioritize self reflection, rest, and self care. By tuning into your cycle and honoring your needs accordingly, you can find balance and harmony within yourself. Please listen to episode 46, all about nurturing your full cycle.

The last practice here is centered around delegating tasks and seeking support. Court. Take a moment to rate the amount of pressure you feel today. On a scale from one to ten, where are you? Is the pressure really high or is it reasonably low? Now ask yourself what parts of my day can I delegate? As women and mothers, we often take on so many responsibilities. We wear so many hats. True strength and leadership though lies in knowing when to delegate and seek help. By delegating tasks and asking for help, we can sustainably show up as the strongest leaders in our families and our communities throughout the day. When you get off track, instead of beating yourself up with unkind judgments and should haves commit to viewing these moments as an opportunity to practice your own self compassion and resiliency. As mothers, we are the examples for our children. How do you want them? How do you want your children to treat themselves? To view themselves even on their worst of days with love and compassion? Right? So let's gift that to ourselves. Let's lead our children by embodying this self compassion and care. As Catherine DeVry wrote in her book, The Gift of Nature like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground and become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient. something about darkness. There's no shape to judge. If you can't see it, forget what it was. Is what you imagine yesterday's gone, neither triumphant or tragic, in the closure of this morning mindfulness practice, please take a final deep breath and open your eyes. Embrace a sense of calm and clarity that you have cultivated within yourself. Carry this intention and mindfulness with you throughout your day, knowing that by nurturing your mind, body and soul, you are prioritizing your overall well being. This is not a luxury. This is necessary.

Thank you for joining me on this journey of nourishing our health and balance throughout our entire bodies by focusing on habits and practices that nurture the foundation of our overall well being our gut health. Remember, you can download this episode and listen every morning to start your day with mindfulness and empowerment. Soon this will become a habit and as the quote I shared earlier by Jen Sinchero says, your habits become your reality. Have a beautiful day, my friend. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Follow Your Gut.

As a reminder, the information shared on the show is not just for your children, but also for you. As a woman at Only Organics, I have created a line of the best quality gut balancing supplements and products that have transformed my family's health and happiness. Head to WW dot onlyonics.com to start your journey to optimal gut health today. Lastly, I always want to be very transparent that I am not a medical professional and the information shared on this podcast is based on my personal experience and research. Please always listen to your own inner voice of wisdom and your healthcare professional. Join me again next week for more insights and inspiration on taking charge of your family's health and happiness. I'll see you then.