The Three Morning Spirals Of A Busy Woman: Which One Are You Riding?
The Three Morning Spirals: Which One Are You Riding?
By Louise Rumball
Hi. Today I want to share something I have been deeply fascinated by, a framework I have been working with that has completely shifted how I see mornings. I believe it will change the way you look at the gift each new day brings too.
Let's start here: we are all energy. Every single cell in your body is vibrating right now, atoms firing, moving, and constantly in flux. This isn't just spiritual language. It's physics and biology. Your body is an electrical system, always sending signals, building charge, and communicating through tiny biochemical and energetic pulses.
This beautiful micro-electrical computer system is always running, waiting for inputs. What should it do with today? How should it feel? Where should its focus go? The truth is, you can direct it and co-create alongside this system. But too often, when we wake up, grab our phones, scroll, and check our inbox, the world dictates the inputs before we have even taken our first conscious breath.
Despite this, each morning we are given a clean slate. Sleep is not just rest. It is deeply restorative on a cellular level. Overnight, your body clears toxins through the glymphatic system, rebalances hormones, regulates your nervous system, and consolidates memories. It lowers cortisol, restores insulin sensitivity, and gives your entire system a chance to reset after carrying the load of the day before.
So when you open your eyes in the morning, your body has essentially cleared the decks. Your brain chemistry, hormones, and energy are primed, waiting for direction. Which is why those first choices in your day matter so much.
Let me reframe it in the way that changed my entire perception of mornings: your morning decisions determine which spiral you ride for the remainder of the day.
The Three Morning Spirals
1. The Upward Spiral of Success
This is the state that primes you for a good day. Small micro-moments come together to lift you up, to make you feel aligned, on track, and in the right space, physically, mentally and emotionally. It is the quiet inherent belief that life is good and it is only going to get better from here.
Psychology calls this an expansive state. Polyvagal theory calls it a regulated state. The spiritual and manifestation world call it an aligned or abundant state. And for some of us? We just call it a good day.
Biologically, the upward spiral looks like a regulated and optimized nervous system. Your heart rate is coherent. Your brain waves move into alpha and theta states that promote creativity and flow. You breathe deeply from your diaphragm, activating your vagus nerve and calming cortisol output. Your mitochondria are producing clean, sustainable energy (ATP), not just borrowing from stress hormones. You are not exhausted, over-controlling, or panicked.
In this state, you move through the day without constant frustration. You are in flow, handling challenges with competence. Good things compound. Opportunities arrive. Connections open. You catch yourself thinking, this feels fun, even easy.
That is the upward spiral of success.
2. The Baseline
Baseline is a temporary but necessary state. Just as your nervous system naturally shifts between activation, regulation and dysregulation throughout the day, baseline is often the space you wake up in, and the space you come back to after the highs of expansion. It is the point of gentle landing. You recalibrate, restore, and integrate.
As much as Type A women may try, we cannot be "on" all the time. Our biology requires balance, and baseline provides the sacred middle ground.
But baseline also has a shadow side. If you do not take daily decisions that align with shifting you onto the upward spiral, baseline can become stagnation. A flatline of energy where you are simply getting through days without growth or forward motion. Psychology describes this as learned helplessness. Polyvagal theory describes it as freeze or fawn.
Over time, staying in baseline for too long starts to look like lack of movement, lack of belief, and a slow drain of possibility across every area of life. And it can lead to the third spiral.
3. The Downward Spiral of Sabotage
We all know this one. The mornings where you drag yourself out of bed, grab coffee on an empty stomach, and scroll your phone before you even know what you are looking for. One stressful email later, your day begins with a cortisol spike and your nervous system is already dysregulated.
As your cortisol spikes, your appetite shuts down. You are more likely to skip breakfast, destabilizing your blood sugar further. Instead of getting outside to move your body, you double down at your desk. You push through the day with adrenaline and cortisol. You do not function at the top of your game. You react too fast, overthink too frequently, and brain fog gets in the way of important calls and conversations.
By the afternoon you crave sugar, caffeine, or distraction. By evening, you crash into the sofa carrying guilt, shame, or regret for the way you handled the day. And your inner critic grows louder: "You should know better. Everyone else is doing it right."
This is why one bad morning often leads to a bad day, and one bad day spirals into a bad week. I call this the downward spiral of sabotage. And I have been there many, many times.
Mornings Are Your Gateway
The more I sat with this, I started to realize: mornings are the clean slate that determines whether you rise into expansion, take a gentle day at baseline, or fall into sabotage. Not every day needs to be an upward spiral. But if you are on a path of growth to a happier, healthier, more successful version of you, the aim is clear: more good days than bad. More momentum than stagnation. More expansion than contraction.
For me, it all comes down to those very first choices after I wake up. On the days when I had something health or wellness related that got me up and out of the house, I always felt better without fail. But getting to the Pilates studio is not always possible with jam-packed calendars that often start way before the average.
The more I sat with this, I realized I needed a morning solution that would get me up and out the door and serve me from every angle. I tried walking meditations and they did not hit for me at all. At 7am, I did not need calming or soothing. I needed something to turn on the ignition of my life and shift me from baseline right up into the upward spiral.
And that is the beautiful thing about the upward spiral. The smallest decisions can take you there.
Why I Created The Morning Rally Walk, Inside The Rally
With all of this in mind, the Morning Rally Walk inside The Rally was born: a daily walking ritual to anchor the clean slate into direction, energy, and momentum before the world gets to you. A daily reminder of who you can be, how you can feel, and how you can prime yourself to step into an upward spiral of success.
As someone with an autoimmune-driven chronic pain disorder, I have also learned that the body accumulates stress residue quickly. Lactate, cortisol byproducts, and adrenaline metabolites build up in my system, and if I do not move them through, they turn into physical pain by aggravating nerves, muscles and tendons. Movement has always been my saving grace.
And the more I spoke with women like me, driven, ambitious, with big dreams running through their veins, the more I realized: movement works for them too. At 7:30am, they do not crave stillness or silence. They need to wake their body, switch on their brain, and ignite their energy for the day ahead.
Inside The Rally, there is a walk for every moment of your day and every state you find yourself in. From a 6-minute Rapid Rally when that is all you have, to our 23-minute Morning, Midday and Restorative Rallies when you have more time and space, to the Activation Rally for when you need a full identity and energy shift in motion. Whatever spiral you woke up on today, there is a Rally to meet you there.
All you have to do is get up, get out, and press play.
👉 Start your 7-day free trial of The Rally here and find out which spiral you can step onto tomorrow morning.
Welcome to your upward spiral of success.
x Louise
