Coffee has always been a prized start to my day but lately, it is even more cherished.
Almost 2 months ago I was finally able to develop – and stick to – a morning routine that would start my day on the right foot. I have struggled my whole life to be a morning person, in fact, I stopped trying years ago. But when I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2016 it got MUCH worse.
Once this disease took over my body I was dysfunctionally exhausted all of the time. I barely made it through the day. I was going to bed at 6pm and waking up at 2am with insomnia. If I didn’t have a day job I would have been in bed the whole day without question. No matter what I did I was beyond exhausted around the clock. I could not function to save my life.
Once my medication was dialed in, which took almost a year, my sleep cycles didn’t become normal, but were more manageable. Insomnia happened less frequently and exhaustion levels went from impossible to somewhat sadly manageable, but my mornings never recovered. It felt like whatever my body was doing to process this illness it was doing overnight and in the morning I had a mega ton of bricks weighing me down. It took everything I had to claw out of bed.
I missed my formerly energetic self, my old life. I knew, like many other tragedies in my life, that this would be no different: I must refuse to be a victim. I did not want to live the rest of my days on Earth feeling this way, plain and simple. This was the WHY that kept me searching for answers.
Of course the road is not that easy with a chronic illness and though I wished to cure myself overnight, it has taken several years to gain back my strength and diminish the ever powerful symptoms of chronic fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, chronic muscle and bone pain, and more.
Coffee wasn’t waking me up, but the aroma, the steam rising from the cup, the warmth touching my lips, still gave me a cozy way to start my day. I was devastated to learn that I would not be able to drink coffee upon waking with my new medication which requires an empty stomach for an hour before ingesting anything…and 4 hours for ibuprofen so you better not wake up with a hangover.
So I started setting my alarm at 5:30am so I could take my pill and fall back asleep until I was allowed to have coffee. For the first few years I thought it would be nice to be able to actually wake up at this time and do a work out or get some writing in, but it seemed to be harder and harder to wake up even when my symptoms were *mostly* under control. “Is this medication really serving me,” I often wondered.
In the beginning of March I attended Tony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within and unleash we did! In full transparency, I have visualized aplenty, and I have incredible will power in many areas of my life, but I think what was different for me this time was we practiced a visualization where we didn’t see the outcome we wanted, but the outcome we didn’t want. What would life be like if you continue on this path you are on, where you are not practicing the rituals and actions that would make the difference in your life? Who would you become? How much more would it hurt? How much worse would it get? What would your life look like years after doing nothing differently that you’re doing today? How would your relationships turn out? Your body? Your mindset?
I can’t even begin replicate Tony’s incredible guidance in a blog post because it is genuine total immersion and the exercises we do over those 4 days unlock so many blocks within you using neuropsychology and other scientifically backed techniques that create multitudes of AHA moments, but for me particularly, it was beyond transformative to go into the depth of that negative visualization that really gave me the boot in the rear I needed to break the cycle I was stuck in.
What on earth does this have to do with coffee?
For the past 7 weeks I’ve been waking up at 5:30am 🤯 and getting into a myriad of amazing things to start my day. I have a nice walk with my dog, I have a glorious morning facial routine, a cold shower, drink lemon water and celery juice, meditate and prime my body and mind, and I work out with @kinrgy every day. This has been a game changer. I still have to pinch myself it’s going so well. *The full details of my morning routine will be posted on May 4th, my 2 month anniversary of being a legit morning person!
I don’t even have coffee until 7:30am! By that time it is the icing on the cake and it just tastes that much better. I have eliminated sugar from diet and I feel a gazillion times better for it. I simply add some pure, creamy, non-dairy, alt-milk like @nutpods and sometimes I’ll top it off with cinnamon and it is the perfect reward to everything I’ve already accomplished.
I love that I don’t need coffee to wake me up, but I get to simply enjoy the flavor and ritual of the ceremony.
☕️ How do you take your coffee? ☕️
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