As you read this, I’ve already had my feet in the sand.

I’m at the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a few days, and I’ve been getting up before sunrise to walk down to the water. Which, if you know me, is a little funny…not the sunrise part since I’m an early riser but the beach part. I’m not really a beach person. I’d rather be traipsing through the woods somewhere in the mountains.

But sunrise at the beach? That’s something else entirely.

There’s something about arriving before the light does. Standing there in the dark, waiting. And then the first hints of pink and orange start to show up at the edge of the sky, and the whole thing begins to shift and morph and change right in front of you. It feels like being let in on a secret.

And then there’s the water. The horizon. The sheer vastness of it — this endless stretch of ocean. Looking out at all of that, I feel a part of something bigger. I feel calmer. Less like I’m gripping onto life.

While I’d love to experience this every morning, I don’t live by the beach and teleportation hasn’t been invented yet. So, I can’t have this exact experience every morning. But the feeling…that I can have, because that’s not actually about the beach.

The beach just gave me permission to stop. To let something natural and unhurried be the first thing I met in the morning.

And I can do that at home. So can you.

You don’t need a beach or a mountain. You need a moment — just a few minutes before your day truly starts, before you open the laptop, before you go online to scroll or check social media or read the news — a moment you spend with nature.

That can look like a lot of things:

• Sitting with one of your houseplants and actually looking at it — the shape of the leaves, the way the light hits it
• Stepping outside and putting your bare feet on the ground
• Looking up at the sky, watching the clouds, listening for birds, noticing a squirrel racing around your yard
• Holding a piece of fruit in your hands before you eat it — really noticing the smell, the texture, the color

Time with nature doesn’t have to be a grand gesture to work. A tree in your backyard counts. The sun coming through your window counts. A plant on your kitchen counter counts.

So that’s my wish and invitation for you this week…

Before the day gets its hooks in you…before the notifications and the to-do lists and the noise…take a few minutes and let something living and unhurried be the first thing you pay attention to.

See what it does to the rest of your morning.

Here’s a peek at my morning….sunrise at the beach, feet still in the sand, watching it all shift and change.

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If you try connecting with nature in the morning this week, I’d love to hear what you did and what you noticed. Hit reply and let me know!

Sending love and calm morning vibes, Chris

PS: If you’re craving a little more of a “calm start to your day” feeling in your everyday life, that’s exactly what we’ll be exploring in The Rest Experiment. We start September 15.