This exercise is suggested by Philip Zaleski, author of ‘Gifts of Spirit – Living the Wisdom of the Great Religions’. He provides the following morning exercise to get your day started great.

When you wake up, spend a few moments lying in bed. Enjoy the exhilaration of the morning air, the shimmer of sunlight along the edges of the drawn shades, the sound of birds. Sense the life flowing through your body. Notice your breath, the pulsing of blood in your fingertips, the tug of gravity upon your arms, legs, and trunk.

Get out of bed slowly, observing the shift in your center of balance as you move into an upright position. Stand erect, without strain. Feel your feet on the ground. Step attentively, aware of the pressure as your soles touch the earth. Expand this awareness in various ways as you go about your morning activities: notice the roundness of the toothbrush handle, the chalky sweetness of the toothpaste, the hard scrape of the comb against your scalp, etc..

Each of these sensory experiences is part of waking up; each of them can be greeted with a frown or a grin. This is where you begin to exercise your will, setting the course for the day. Will you react impatiently to whatever comes your way, or will you greet events with as much serenity as you can muster, containing yourself long enough to form an appropriate response? Will you let petty worries rule your day, or will you remember your higher aims? What comes our way each day is only partly under our control, but how we respond is entirely up to us.Once you are up and about, it's time to spend a few minutes in a specific, concrete spiritual practice.

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Is the cup of life half empty or is it half full? Your heart is the cup and your outlook determines what fills that cup. Whine anyone?

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