Mornings are my favorite time of day to dedicate myself to spiritual development. When you’re focused on connecting with a higher power and healing your spirit, a consistent morning routine for spiritual growth is essential.
Consider the principles of silence, solitude, learning, praying, and meditating in order to connect with your highest self as well as the higher power. So many practices can be made spiritual when we use the practice to be intentional, mindful, and allow God or Spirit to teach us.
What Does Spiritual Development Look Like?
Being “spiritual” can mean something different to everyone. Sometimes it’s study in a particular religion, and sometimes it can mean more esoteric practices like tarot or channeling spirits.
But in general spiritual development is what happens when we’re intentionally learning about connecting to a power higher than ourselves. Spiritual development can sometimes happen on its own (it can take us by surprise like in the case of a spiritual awakening), but usually, it’s due to dedicated study and effort.
A Higher Power
Again, a higher power is essential in spirituality. Whether that be God, the Universe, Allah, Goddess, Mother Earth, Gaia, Spirit, or Source, all are valid. While many argue that these are all different things, I would contest that they are in fact all the same.
And we cannot talk with our higher power like we talk to other humans, so spiritual practices like prayer or meditation are essential to be able to get in touch with this power.
Interbeing
However, spirituality not only helps us connect with a higher power, it also helps us connect with one another. Being spiritual means seeing the humanity in each and every person and treating everyone with compassion and loving-kindness.
In the practice of Engaged Buddhism, this is called interbeing: the fact that every human, animal, rock, tree, and gust of wind on this earth are connected with one another. Their suffering is our own suffering. Their joy is our own joy.
We cannot understand others’ suffering without understanding our own. Therefore, it’s essential in spiritual practice not just to look toward our higher power, but also look inward toward ourselves.
Start Your Morning with Silence and Solitude
The basis of all spiritual growth and healing is silence and solitude.
Without silence or solitude, spiritual development is more challenging and tedious, with obstacles like others’ opinions, judgment, more opportunities for frustration, dissatisfaction, and over-boiling emotions.
Silence and solitude gives you the opportunity to do the deep dive without distractions. You have the chance to observe your emotions, get to know how your body feels, and truly listen to your intuition. You can take the time to read spiritual books and texts, take notes, and examine your own reflections on what you’re taking in.
Even fifteen minutes a day is better than nothing. Or perhaps you can manage an hour or two once a week.
But when you really feel a spiritual awakening coming and you want to lean into it, you really need to give yourself time alone to meditate, pray, study, feel, think, and just simply be.
This can mean a full hour spiritual morning routine to raise your vibes, increase your awareness, and enhance your connection to Spirit and to the essential interbeing of all creatures on planet Earth.
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7 Steps to Creating a Magical Morning Routine for Spiritual Growth
1) Set aside time
As mentioned above, you need to give time to dedicate to your spiritual morning routine if you intend to see any growth or development from your practice.
If you’re a parent, waking up before your children is essential. I personally like to have a full two hours in the morning before my children wake up. I get up at 4:00am and they get up at 6:00. This gives me plenty of time to dedicate mindful energy to the rest of the items on this list.
However, I’m an especially sensitive person, so I need extra time to clear the clutter and get into the mindset I want to embody during the day. You might only need a half an hour to effectively complete all the items on this list.
Try Dawson Church’s Mindvalley Course “Mystic Brain” for a morning meditation.
2) Set an intention
You can do this the night before when you go to bed, or you can do this when you first get up, but I find setting an intention to be, in many ways, the most important aspect of my healing morning routine.
This can be as simple or complex as you’d like. Here are a few examples.
- Today I aim to love myself and treat those around me with compassion.
- Everything I do today is to honor God and the image of God in every living creature.
The 5 Principles of Reiki are a great set of intentions for your spiritual development each day.
Just for today, I will not worry, I will not anger, I will do my work honestly, I will be grateful for my many blessings, and I will be kind to all living things.
Here is my version of these principles, if you would like to download and print the principles for your own personal use.
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3) Honor your body
Treating our bodies with honor and respect is an important part of many religions and certainly an essential part of any spiritual practice, religion or not.
In the morning, setting your body up for a healthy day is helping you connect with yourself, God, and others. In fact, using healthy practices sets us up for success, helps us manage our emotions, and is essential self-care.
I like to start my morning with 20 ounces of water, a probiotic, and some light yoga to stretch my muscles and move my blood and chi. But you might prefer a run and protein shake, or a weights workout with a light vegan breakfast.
However you choose to do it, honoring your body and health is always a deeply spiritual practice.
4) Quiet your mind
Whether through self-hypnosis, meditation, or another mindfulness practice, finding silence is truly golden. Learning how to clear your cluttered thoughts and quiet your mind is a practice that lasts you much longer than just your meditation session.
Regular meditation has additional benefits that reach far beyond spirituality. Meditation has been proven to reduce blood pressure, help with sleep, boost your memory and mental clarity, help with anxiety and emotions, and even can help control pain.
As mentioned, these benefits follow you throughout your day, allowing you to stay better connected to Source and treat others with compassion.
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5) Feed your intellect
While I’m definitely someone who “feels” and trusts her gut more than her brain, learning new information is a wonderful way to enhance your spirituality.
I enjoy reading books as well as taking Udemy courses on various subjects, from Reiki, to witchcraft, to the history surrounding Jesus’s life. You might find that studying the Bible and taking notes is more your speed, and that’s okay.
But study has always gone side-by-side with practice, and studying spirituality is another integral aspect to a spiritual morning routine.
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6) Sort your emotions
Whether we like to admit it or not, our emotions have a deep impact on our spirituality and religion. Many religions like Christianity put emphasis on controlling our emotions. Others like Buddhism simply support practices that stop our emotions from controlling us.
Either way, getting to know our emotions, the good and the bad, is another important practice.
This can be done through free journaling or answering questions or prompts. I personally love journaling as I can go back and reference what emotions I experienced while going through a certain challenge in my life.
Meditation is another practice that helps allow us to see our emotions more clearly.
Either way, viewing our emotions clearly can help us develop empathy for others as well as ease our own suffering.
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7) Connect with God
They say that meditation is listening to God and that prayer is talking to God. Both are important practices for spiritual growth, and morning is the perfect time to do this.
Prayer isn’t the only way to talk to Source. Setting intentions, using affirmations, getting clear on what you want in life, and using the Law of Attraction are all additional ways to let the Universe know what’s on your mind. If you’re a witch you might cast spells. You might also consider connecting with nature by drinking tea on the porch, or going for a walk while the sun is coming up.
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Conclusion and Further Study
A morning routine for spiritual growth is all about communicating to God/the Universe/Spirit and learning to listen to what it has to tell you in return. For this, you need to clear the clutter of your mind, embrace stillness and silence, and just be with yourself.
This will help you throughout the rest of your day as well, in the ways that you interact with others, in your mindset, and how you see God working in your life.
While the morning is the perfect time for a restful study, connecting with others over shared spirituality is also an important practice. So don’t forget to find a church, Sangha, temple, coven, or other community that you can connect with beyond your morning spiritual practices.
What sorts of things would you add to your spiritual morning routine?
Drop me a comment below!
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