Priming
Every Wanderer needs a night routine that acts as a phase shift for the Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS), done every night on path days to declare to the universe and the gods that I have successfully ended the day and now am at rest.
Even on off-path days, the night routine can(and truthfully should) still be done to strengthen the ritual while encouraging having successful days off the path.
The point of the night routine is sending a multi-domain signal to your Body, Mind, and Spirit,(BMS) that you are off the path. You are resting and relaxing; you will still collect ideas, but you are not pursuing mastery because pursuing rest is more valuable, and ideally you have already walked the path to respectable exhaustion across the three domains of man.
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The Andreia philosophy is binary–there is on the path, and there is off the path–we use the night routine to declare that we are OFF the path.
OFF/ON
The night routine declares that we are retiring from our pursuits so we may rest to continue pursuit with great vigor tomorrow. A good night routine touches each pillar of Body Mind and Spirit(BMS) calming each domain, preparing for sleep, surrendering our domains to the unconscious void.
The night routine should be done sometime near bedtime but could be an hour or two before.
The morning routine winds you up.
The night routine winds you down.
Below are 10 archetypical persona-based morning routines. These personas are examples. You will have multiple personas at a time and throughout your life.
Do not feel obliged to use replicas of the night routines below.
You should steal what is useful based on your internal motivation/desire for night routine components, understanding that wanderers are unique and are on unique paths so they must have unique night routines and unique codes.
The general standard
- B: Physical wind-down
- M: Mental wind-down
- S: Spiritual wind-down
This is the most basic, general template for a night routine.
The General night routine involves touching each domain: Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS), soothing it, and winding it down: Keep in mind that walking the path to mastery in each domain today should already bring us to lower levels of energy near the end of the day.
If you finish the day with too much energy in Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS) you did not wander far or hard enough, and sleep will be difficult.The night routine should be the extra wind down that helps put you in a deep sleep.
If you haven’t done night routines before, perform a short routine you will do consistently as opposed to a long routine. Long routines are not recommended as the mind must be active to remember them.
During the night routine, we tell our body, mind, and spirit they can relax.
The nightly physical routine can be doing nothing physical. But you may get more benefit from stretching, doing yoga, or laying on a premium quality acupuncture mat which will help you sleep better. The ideal night routine touches the body domain.
You can do nothing for the mind–doing nothing is meditation. Or do something that does not involve using logic, problem-solving, planning, or debating, like math or chess or learning a new language.
You can read, but read something non-technical, like a story that guides you like a lazy river. Avoid reading on your phone because blue lights keep you up and notifications are sleep disturbers.
Recommended: The Kindle Paperwhite has a warmth setting that will not hurt your sleep
The spirit likes to recall what you are grateful for. Reviewing your goals and the joy of pursuing them. Praying to those who passed away warms the spirit. As does praying to God or the universe.
The College Student
- B: Nightly walk
- M: Nightly walk
- S: Career/goals visualization
The college student must prioritize sleep while ensuring they do not neglect the body.
The student should focus on discipline while on the path to their degree, possibly attempting to finishing early, or at the latest on time.
The student could go on a walk at night to engage the body. The walk can allow for processing thoughts so you can sleep with an empty mind. A clean mind. Clean your body and mind before bed so the spirit may be at ease.
While laying in bed, the student can visualize what they hope their degree will help them achieve. The rewards of their training. They can do this every night to reinforce their WHY for following this path. Even if their WHY is ‘I like it’.
This is important because while you are in college you will learn more about what you like and do not like. So you may change your degree based on newly acquired knowledge and experience. College is a good time to undergo the mastery rites of passage since you are learning so much about the world and yourself.
Be cautious of outside pressure that may push you towards a degree program that does not call to you. A good path is one that is fulfilling in the practice of it. You may have many options for paths and the right answer is going forward, not which path you take. Always going forward.
Outside pressure can include:
- Money
- Parents expectations
- Friends decisions
- Content that may or may not be accurate
Pursuing a path to mastery because you like is always an honorable decision because you are living authentic.
Visualize your aspirations while lying in bed each night to reinforce your desire to pursue your dreams.
The Athlete
- B: Hot water immersion
- M: Readings from others who have walked the path
- S: Review of physical performance with visualization
The athlete has a well-defined path to mastery in the body domain.
It is crucial the athlete does not neglect the mind. The athlete must understand that athletics is as mental and spiritual as it is physical as you bring all three to every competition.
Warriors fight with body, mind, and spirit. Sport is simulated warfare.
The athlete can take a hot shower for their night routine, or better, a hot bath, so they immerse themselves in heat which will aid recovery. The athlete can use Epsom salt infused with Zinc and Magnesium which are shown to increase recovery as well as testosterone. A sauna is even better.
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A tennis player may read, Open by Andre Agassi, whereas an American Football player may read Driven: From Homeless to Hero, My Journeys On and Off Lambeau Field, about wide receiver Donald Driver, regardless if this is the position they play.
While in bed, the athlete can visualize their victory, or their plays, but not strongly enough to stay awake. They may visualize their life after sports which comes for all athletes, like the legendary Samurai Miyamoto Musashi who later in life put down his sword to pick up a paintbrush.
Miyamoto Musashi content for the athlete:
- Musashi’s 21 Precepts for life – Dokkōdō – Wisdom From The Greatest Swordsman to Ever Live
- Books About The Great Samurai Miyamoto Musashi
The runner
- B: Stretching
- M: Biography reading
- S: Manual paced breathing
The wanderer who pursues running for their body mastery can walk the path when they aren’t running.
At night the runner may stretch their legs, and do recovery exercises, maybe using a massage gun or a rumble roller to work on knots, so they are fresh for their morning run.
After stretching, they can continue pursuing mastery of running by reading easy mentally digestible stories that relate to running and athletic performance. They may read a book from any athletic discipline to source inspiration for their continued training and to keep the spirit burning hot, especially in the morning when the bed is warm and the outside is cold.
Lying in bed with the lights off, the runner may breathe manually, paced, and controlled, until they fall asleep. Better breathing will help their running, as well as general domains of Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS).
The Lost, hurt, or Confused Wanderer(Infirmed Spirit)
- B: target stillness
- M: Guided hypnosis/meditation
- S: Guided hypnosis/meditation
The lost, hurt, or confused wanderer carries an infirmed spirit. They may be depressed. They do not have a direction that moves them forward because they have not found a path that calls to them in body, mind, or spirit, or, they are not walking their path(s), which can come from spiritual wounds that need sutures that only the wanderer must apply.
The lost, hurt, or confused wanderer may be lazy. Their laziness is their fault, only because it is up to them to fix it, regardless of whether or not they did it to themselves, or something else hurt them.
The only one who can get the hurt wanderer back to the path is the wanderer. A therapist can guide them there, but they must walk.
The hurt wanderer does not think they deserve what they want, or they may think they deserve so little, that they avoid having desires for fulfillment or pleasure. It is important to have desire for the path; having desire for that which is outside of you can result in suffering.
When lost, it’s easy to be lazy because you cannot tell what direction is forward. It’s akin to walking in the desert and everything looks the same, and you think you saw that rock before, this dune looks the same…so you sit and you wait.
Waiting to meditate and waiting to die are different.
The hurt wanderer can lay in bed and target complete stillness.
They can do a body scan, starting from their toes, relaxing each piggy, working their way up their calves, thighs, and beyond, relaxing every fiber in every muscle without neglecting the soft tissue of the neck, until they reach their face and take the time to feel each little muscle and let go of those too, relaxing the head, relaxing the entire skull while letting go of any tension, and then when all the tension is released, and at the very end when the muscles are free, the wanderer relaxes their mind, the most difficult to relax.
The hurt wanderer is often locked into “fight or flight mode”. The body scan pulls them out of it. It is difficult to relax the spirit when the body is tight. The body is tight when the mind is anxious.
The hurt wanderer can think clearly when their body relaxes. This may be a new and unfamiliar feeling. They may want to open their mind to suggestion like guided meditation or hypnosis.
Recommended hypnosis provider – Michael Sealy
- Guided Meditation for Detachment From Over-Thinking (Anxiety / OCD / Depression)
- Hypnosis for Clearing Subconscious Negativity
- Sleep Hypnosis for Calming An Overactive Mind
The Business Builder
- B: Extended planks
- M: non-technical reading about lessons, history, biographies, etc.
- S: visualizing the business goals and objectives
The business builder may be an entrepreneur or a key individual within a company who believes their company has invested in them as much as they have invested in their company, so they see a shared vision, and the business builder believes their work for the company will result in rewards from the company–less than this, and the business builder should find another role, or start their own company.
Examples of a company investing in a builder can include stock options, training, commissions, profit sharing, or company bonuses.
The business builder is not used by their organization, but has a symbiotic relationship where both have their needs met.
The business builder works long hours. They are often dominated in the mental domain and can let the body and spirit domains suffer. This must be prevented. At night, the business builder can practice planks to train their core strength. They should also invest in a stand-up desk like one from Apex Desks.
The business builder can read books before bed to expand their knowledge in all things. These books should feel more like oration–AKA a biography–and less like a technical handbook, because we want the mind to be at rest, gently absorbing information in story form.
They should study great individuals in business who came before them to pursue wisdom and in some cases negate the need for learning lessons through failure.
While lying in bed, the business builder may visualize the goals and objectives of the business, to see it, so he may believe it.
The New Father
- B: Crib side relaxing yoga
- M: Prayer
- S: Prayer
The new father will be obsessed with his child, as he should be. He cannot neglect his body. Parents who neglect their bodies reduce the safety of their child.
Fitness makes you fit to succeed in all three domains, body, mind, and spirit. Parents must continue to train their fitness. All individuals must pursue mastery in body, mind, and spirit, at all stages in life. This is law.
To wind down the body, mind, and spirit, the new father can lay a yoga mat next to his child’s crib and perform movements. They can do gentle, stretching yoga, since this is a night routine and we are preparing for sleep.
The new father can pray for the health of his child, his partner, and himself before bed. Prayer uses the mind to touch the spirit.
You can and are obligated to continue the pursuit of mastery as a parent.
The Creative
- B: Acupuncture mat
- M: Affirmations
- S: Mind alteration
The artist must become familiar with chaos in order to travel to the realm of ideas and come back with something useful.
Sometimes this can be achieved with mind-altering substances, whether that be a beer or two, marijuana, or something else.
This isn’t to say the artist does this every night, but the artist may benefit from altering their mind to grasp new ideas or break through their creative plateaus; this advice is not for everyone.
The artist can alter their mind without substances. They can do breathing methods, meditation, yoga, hypnosis, hard physical training, or any other method they find. Altering the artists mind can be useful in the evening when work on the path is complete or in the final quarter.
The artist may get thoughts out of their head by generating ideas and pulling them out of their head. Write them down, or use a notetaking software like the fantastic, one time fee fore life, Upnote.
It is crucial for the artist to find methods to catch ideas. Every artist will make their idea net with different activities.
This is productive because as a practice the artist must find rituals that allow them to cast out their idea net and work to make it larger to catch bigger ideas as well as larger quantities of ideas.
The acupuncture mat is a spiny mat that can be laid on to help increase relaxation. Because the artist is often drowning in their mind, the light pain from the acupuncture mat can pull their consciousness into their pain and out of their mind. This can be a great relief to the artist who suffers from the relentless hail of uncontrolled thought.
The artist often judges themself too much. Affirmations while laying in bed plays offense against negative invader thoughts.
The Go With The Motioner
- B: Nothing
- M: Nothing
- S: Nothing
The go with the motioner does nothing to prepare himself for sleep, so his sleep does not fulfill him. He is not prepared to end the day, so the day does not end well, and the next day is not prepared for, so the following day does not go well, and this can go on for a lifetime.
The go with the motioner suffers in a society where distraction and comfort are constantly promoted to the individual because the go with the motioner does not have an identity, so they struggle to say no to pleasure. They do not have boundaries. They are taken advantage of by people and corporations.
Having an identity is having boundaries.
They will lay in bed with multiple corporations because they cannot say no; they may sleep with their smartphone, with the TV on, using apps from other corporations; one must never share the bed with a corporation.
The go with the motioner does not live a fulfilling life. He exists until he dies, like a flower that didn’t put effort into blooming, so it never did.
Avoid a life without blooming.
The Retired Person
- B: Stretching
- M: Jeopardy
- S: Praying
The retired person must keep their body, mind, and spirit sharp so they do not become dull–dull is death–this applies to all, but more so to those who are older, as if they do not use it, they will lose it. Your life is a sword, and training keeps it sharp and prevents rust.
If the domains of Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS) become dull, life accelerates into death. The pursuit of fulfillment keeps the wanderer alive. The pursuit of pleasure kills the wanderer.
For the mind, the retired person, or couple, could watch Jeopardy together. They should be doing more than this, but a trivia show can be a single night routine activity that takes place in the evening.
The retired person can stretch at night; this is important as maintaining mobility and strength are the key focuses of the body domain for the elderly.
Remember, the night routine can be broken up into chunks.
For the mental domain, the elderly must maintain mobility and strength of mind, while also passing every piece of valuable knowledge they can down to anyone who will accept it–to anyone who will accept it–not just grandchildren. This means that the elderly must work on their charisma, their delivery of wisdom; barking platitudes at the youth will not accomplish the goal of passing valuable knowledge downstream so future generations can improve.
Older generations shirking younger generations instead of teaching them is a spiritual disease that chips away at the strength of a society.
The elderly must avoid the mental model of, “nobody is listening, what’s the point.” Or, “I already tried to tell them, they aren’t listening.” Improve your delivery as a pursuit to further progress down the path of passing your knowledge down.
The elderly can live forever if they pass their wisdom to newer generations.
Final Considerations
At all times, all people should be prepared to die.
The elderly should pray to their God(s), or the universe, every night to prepare for an honorable death.
All people should do this as death is always lurking but the elderly more so because they are closer to death.
Create a night routine that prepares you for sleep so every day ends with a preparation to walk the path the following day.
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