Alan and Bre open with a quick conversation about material items and living a more simplistic life. Bre then leads us through our breathing exercise and they jump right in to Alan’s morning rituals. Alan loves his mornings because they are exclusively for him. By sticking to his regimented mornings, it keeps him on track throughout his day. Part of Alan’s morning routine is hanging out with his dogs, his older dog was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and was put on meds, now his dog is acting like a puppy again. The news is not in his morning routine. He sticks with reading and meditation. Alan shares that meditation for him is about being comfortable and looking at his breath. Tells a story about letting one of his students know that meditation should be comfortable. Bre calls out Alan about this comfortable aspect because Alan talked about being with discomfort in yoga class earlier in the week. Alan shares another quote from that class: “Empathy is not supposed to ease discomfort.” They continue to converse about removing barriers to get you into meditation. A reminder that meditation comes in many forms, moving and/or still. Bre talks about Yoga Nidra and how she uses it as her primary form of meditation. Nidra uses the biological process of sleep to drop into deeper brainwave states; 45 minutes Nidra can be 3 hours of sleep. Alan brings up the impact of drugs and their effects on sleep cycles. Bre talks about her Whoop strap and brags about how awesome of a sleeper she is. They talk about consistency not being either bad/good. It takes years of consistency to train yourself, while we all want instant gratification that is not what the journey is about. Routines and self care are important because selfishness leads to selflessness. Your cup must be full to be able to pour from it. Alan shares that he and his wife often talk about having the right tools to ensure what you are doing in life is going to lead to success and what you want. Bre and Alan relate instant gratification to our technology phone era. Alan then dives into his nightly routine which includes hot tea, more reading, beauty care including night time eye cream and going to sleep in a conducive environment for sleep. Bre starts on her nightly routine. No phone before bed. She talks about intermittent fasting. When in bed, she writes in one of her many journals, a few words about how she felt that day, 3 gratitude points and what she wants to share with the world. They continue to discuss journaling. Bre wakes up and first uses her dream journal to write down her dreams, she looks at if there are consistencies and patterns in her dreams. When Bre is out of bed, she greets the earth, pulls an animal spirit card for reflection, does breathing exercises and sun salutations [yogic movement.] Bre and Alan talk about the habits they have and how through routine we can attempt to weed out the bad ones. But we must understand, are we walking the dog or is the dog walking us. Her coffee ritual is important with hand grinder and aeropress, keeps things slow. For intermittent fasting, she does not eat early which was initially a hard habit to change. Bre comes back to empathy and how it can diminish someone else’s experience. We should recognize that although experiences might seem the same, every experience is different, no one has the exact same experience. JOURNAL PROMPT: Write about your thoughts from the episode. Write about the obstacles that stand in your way from creating a routine and potential solutions to remove those obstacles. HUGE THANK YOU to the Allyson Band https://allysonband.com/ for the podcast’s music and Brianna Cote http://briannacote.com for photography and cover design. Book & other References: Being conscious about what we consume, how we consume and where we consume, please support your local bookstore, they can typically order most books for you if they don’t have it in the store. Maus by Art Spiegelman, Whoop Strap- email for discount
