DEEPER - Jeff's Morning Routine
Dear Zigzag Plus Subscribers,
When you work for yourself, without children or animals to care for, you can let your body have its natural rhythms.
I go to sleep when I am tired, and I wake up when I feel rested. Normally, that’s between 5 and 7 a.m.
Our previous apartment in Sarande overlooked one of the city's busiest intersections.
Waking up at 5:00 AM in that apartment was magical. It was still warm enough that I could open the window and watch and listen to the city wake up. When I first opened the window, the street was quiet enough that I could hear the waves of the Ionian Sea hitting the shore. As people woke up, I could hear the sounds of cars as people drove to work and then children walking by on their way to school.
One morning I decided I wanted to share this time with you, our supporters, so I took the photos and video in this post.
Life got away from us with our unexpected return to America in October and then Christmas and New Year’s Celebrations in Rome and Thessaloniki. And this post sat on the back burner.
I am excited to let it see the light of day and let you in on my morning routine.
Foundations
Before I get into my routine, let me lay a small foundation.
My morning routine is spiritual and religious. It comes from the Christian tradition. I have been a Christian my whole life. I am a recent convert (circa 2020) to the Orthodox Church in the Greek Archdiocese.
Many of you come from religious backgrounds. Some have stayed in their faith tradition, while others have switched to something different. A handful of our readers are Orthodox, while others have left their faith entirely.
What I am doing in the morning, though religious, does not need to be limited to Christianity. My goals are something I believe we can share regardless of faith or tradition:
Grounding my whole self in ultimate reality.
My Whole Self
Patient teachers know that student behavior is communication. A child’s actions tell the adults they need something even though they have not managed to articulate their need with words.
We usually think of our thoughts as the CEO of ourselves. But our whole self comprises more than our speech center, where thoughts arise. There are parts of our adult minds that don’t communicate through language. Like children, these places communicate through behavior and emotions.
Our thoughts aren’t the voice of the CEO. They are more like the public relations director, communicating the needs of our whole person.
Psychologists and religious people have different names for these parts of our mind. In Orthodoxy, one of these places is our nous or heart.
Most of us are not in touch with this non-verbal part of ourselves. Our thoughts (and the thoughts of others) are always colliding with us.
One of my tasks in the morning is to ground my whole self, both verbal and nonverbal—a nonjudgmental embrace of the whole Jeff. This involves a lot of quiet, stillness, and meditation.
Ultimate Reality
In the morning, you are most likely to find me outside or viewing the outdoors, whether in a cabin in the Cascades, a house in Moses Lake, or an apartment on the Ionian Sea.
My childhood and adult faith taught me that God was, for the most part, outside of normal existence. Earth was here; heaven was up there. We used literal language to discuss everyday existence and spiritual language to describe heavenly existence.
This was never satisfying, but it was what I believed Christianity was.
Orthodoxy doesn’t believe this. We believe matter matters. The divine is in the midst of us, all around us. Ultimate reality is the logos, the divine word of the universe, the order of the universe.
You will catch us using literal language to describe spiritual things. And spiritual language to describe literal things.
In the morning, I place myself near nature to be open to the cosmos and pay attention to the wordless word.
Grounding my whole self in ultimate reality.
My Morning Routine
I keep the lights as dim as possible. I want to experience the gradual waking up of planet Earth without artificial light.
The first thing I do is boil water to make my coffee.
Prayer
While it is boiling, I light our vigil lamp, sometimes burning incense.
Standing, I pray the first two pages from our prayer book.
Once the water has come to a boil, I pour it over the grounds in our French press and let it steep.
Meditation
This is the first moment of my day spent in mindfulness. I set a 3-minute breath timer on my watch and sit quietly. Making coffee and mindfulness have formed a Pavlovian relationship.
Once my coffee is done, I pour a cup for myself.
And I sit.
I allow space for non-verbal Jeff.
The heart. The nous.
To absorb the wordless word of the cosmos as I look out across the sea.
To see the world as it really is.
Morning Papers
After some time has passed, I journal.
This is a new addition to my morning routine. Andy Hunt, in his book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, taught me the value of journaling soon after waking up. The first 30 minutes of waking up are called Hypnopompia, the transitional state of consciousness as you emerge from sleep into wakefulness. It is characterized by a blend of dream-like cognition and waking awareness.
Morning papers are an opportunity to capture creative thoughts. It is a chance for me to listen while the public relations manager of my mind reports in from the non-verbal parts. If I wake up with anxious feelings, journaling allows those anxious thoughts to express themselves.
This has been hugely beneficial. Most of my plans for each day this week have come from what I wrote down in the first half hour of my morning.
The Rest
From there, I go where I feel led. My prayer book contains morning, afternoon, and evening prayers. I have holy scripture available to read and a daily devotional that tells stories of various saints.
But I have no obligation to any of them. I listen to the wordless word and follow my nose.
This act of centering carries me through my day. It is often repeated when I pause for a nap. When I need to relocate my north star, I return to the journal from the morning and check for unfinished tasks assigned by Jeff & Co's public relations manager.
And that’s it! A typical Jeff morning.
I’d love to hear about your morning routines. Leave a comment or reply.
Thank you again for your support. It means the world to me!
~ Jeff
Well, I was about to abandon my french press as a failed experiment, but now I feel inspired to reconsider it. And to put a journal next to my coffee mugs!
I too have learned the value of centering, grounding quiet time in the first part of the morning. Of late, my quiet time included reading some of the writings from Stoic philosopher Epictetus, writing in my journal, listening to Buddhist dharma talks, or reading a chapter at a time of Rick Rubin's The Creative Act. What I don't do is read the news first thing in the morning.