I start every morning off with a little spiritual routine. Now, I do struggle at first with wanting to check whatever notifications or emails have accumulated on my phone over the night. But once I can wrestle myself away from it, which takes about 5-10 minutes, I get out of bed and go to what we call our “spirit room”. The dog usually follows me in, yawning and stretching his little legs as I situate myself for my morning meditation. I like to use this app, Insight Timer, which calls me into my session with a nice reverberating chime. While I meditate, I try to practice mindfulness, focusing on breath and presence of being, as well as on visualizations of whatever it is I’m currently working toward or trying to call in.

After about ten to twenty minutes, depending on how long I’m going for that day, another chime rings and I stir myself out of my meditation. Next comes my daily prayer. Now, for a long time, I gave up on any sort of prayer because it all felt too religious to me. But ultimately, I found a way to reclaim it as a means to connect more to the energy of that something greater outside of myself. Here is my prayer:

Thank you God for the gift of this life,

This breath,

This moment,

This day.

I am so grateful for it.

I’m grateful to be alive,

Grateful to be present,

Grateful to be me,

Angel Lopez,

In this life, in this breath, in this being.

Help me to be present today.

Show me the light, show me the love,

Show me the path forward

So that I can be my best self,

My most creative, confident, joyful, loving self.

Help me to be of service.

Of service to others, of service to myself, and to my higher calling.

I am here for it.

I am available to it.

I am present to it.

I share all of this with you because the Virgo New Moon is here, and it’s urging you to give some more structure and routine to your spiritual healing. We also have Mercury, Mars, and Venus all up on the Virgo train, so that even though we are about to head into Libra season, we are all still in a place where we need to focus on Virgo’s lessons of organization and self-analysis. And there’s also still some major healing to be done. All around us right now. Structures are literally falling down in places like Mexico and throughout the Caribbean, and they will need to be rebuilt. Connections to faith are being weakened and need to be solidified. And those of us who can offer up any sort of assistance need to be able to give from a place of strength and calm.

You have to get more serious when it comes to your own personal healing and spiritual connection. It doesn’t have to be anything over the top, but it has to become a daily priority. I’ve shown you mine. It takes up maybe fifteen to thirty minutes of my morning, depending on how badly I need it. But given the current state of worldly affairs, and how I believe we are all trying so very hard to access our best, most creative, confident, joyful, loving selves right now, none of us have a choice when it comes to being more grounded in a soulful connection with something greater than who we are. By cultivating that connection, we can also get more in touch with our authenticity. And it is our authenticity that will then connect us to greater abundance of the things we’re looking to attain right now.

In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho writes, “When we love, we always strive to become better. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too” So start each day by loving yourself enough to give yourself some time to just breathe and be present. Give yourself some love and energy before you then go out into the world and give it away to others. And know that by healing more of yourself, you will be better equipped to help those who need some healing love too.