Chasing Sunrises and Finding Myself in the Morning

I laugh at people’s morning routines.

Social media overflows with them, perfectly curated, impossibly rigid, drenched in self-importance. The 4 AM warriors, the ice bath enthusiasts, the ones who claim to thrive on exhaustion like it’s a virtue.

And yet, I am a hypocrite. For all my mocking, I have built a morning routine of my own, written it out, listed my non-negotiables, committed to it, shaped my mornings with intention. Not for show. Not for discipline’s sake. Just because, for the first time, I wanted my mornings to be something more than an afterthought.

It starts with the alarm. No snoozing. No bargaining. I rise, I make the bed, not for neatness, but to stop myself from slipping back into warmth. Before my mind can protest, I press play. Music floods the room, something loud, something happy, something that makes my body move. And so I dance, half-asleep, half-alive, shaking the night from my limbs.

Then comes the stillness. Prayer. A whispered conversation before the noise of the world finds me. I read, letting words settle into my mind like footprints in wet sand, hoping they don’t wash away too quickly. These small rituals tether me, keeping the morning from slipping through my fingers.

And then, I walk.

My feet find the sand before the sun finds the sky. The waves roll in, steady and patient, as I move beside them. The air is thick with salt, the kind that wakes you up, that makes you breathe a little deeper. The sunrise is the destination, but the beach is the rhythm that leads me to it.

I watch the sky change in slow motion, from ink to ember to gold. The world stretches, exhales, becomes something new again. And I am there, moving through it, letting the colors spill into my day before anything else can.

The sun is fully awake by the time I return, and the world is about to stir. I shower, trade pajamas for business casual, even if my office is just the next room. It makes me feel like I am stepping into something with intention. Like I am showing up for my own life.

Before diving into the work ahead, I ease into it. A little YouTube, inbox zeroed out, simple emails answered, coffee number two in hand. I let myself wake up slow, let my mind catch up to my body.

Then, a pause. A small window of indulgence. I scroll, I text, I let myself wander through the trivial and the fleeting, knowing that soon, focus will take its place.

And then, the work begins. My first 4 hour block of deep focus, built on the foundation of quiet, of movement, of sunrise.

This routine keeps me moving. It keeps me grounded. It reminds me that each day, no matter how chaotic, begins with something steady, something bright, something rhythmic, something vast enough to hold all of me.

Like the sunrise spilling light across the ocean, I feel something shifting. Something waking up inside me. Something warm, something steady, something alive.