The Life Of Bryony - The Life Of You Daily Rituals To Rewire Your Reality With Matt Cooke

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Matt Cooke is back with me to reveal the daily non‑negotiables that keep him grounded, sane and able to show up for his life. He shares the simple practices that support his body, brain and energy, and explains how you can start building your own versions, even if you think you’re too busy, too “all over the place”, or too burnt out to begin. We talk morning and evening routines, movement that calms a racing mind, and how to protect your energy from the people and situations that drain you.​ If you’ve ever wondered what really underpins a “high‑vibe” life, this chat is your sign to find your own three things.BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEMatt’s book, Beyond Wanting, is available to buy now.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Matt CookeProducer: Laura Elwood-CraigAssistant Producer: Tippi WillardStudio Manager: Sam ChisholmEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, gorgeous ones, and welcome to the bonus edition of The Life of Briny. Today, Matt Cook is lifting the lid on the three essentials he simply couldn't live without and sharing the little daily habits that keep him grounded and focused. By the end of this episode, you might just be inspired to bring a bit of Matt's manifesting magic into your own life. When we go into an environment where we know we might be triggered or we know someone might steal our energy, we just rehearse first. okay, this person typically does this that annoys me. So I'm going to imagine like an energy bubble around me

and I'm going to walk in there and protect that energy. My chat with Matt, coming up right after this. Matt Cook, welcome back, Life of You. Thank you. Three, we're going to talk about the three things that are essential to your well-being, keeping you feeling inspired and manifested. positive things.

What's number one? I never miss it. Never go a day without it. And that is my journaling and meditation practice every single day. So my wife and I have a practice where we take it in turns with our son because he's normally awake at that sort of time at half five. We go out into our home office in our garden, normally me first. And I go into there and I will meditate first.

I don't go on my phone. None of that. That's after. And the first thing I do every morning is visualize my future as if it's already done. Right. And then I get into my journaling. My journaling is observational as people heard on the podcast. So really reflecting on what's going on at the moment, how I'm thinking, what I need to change and my gratitude practice.

And that takes me about an hour. Okay. Every single, I never, ever miss a day. Christmas Day, birthday is flying. Like there's never a day I miss. So if someone says, I don't have time to do that. Would your argument be, if you give this time, it will give you time back?

Like, I always have this thing in recovery. I'm sober and class myself as an alcoholic. And I remember very early on going, I don't have a time to go. I don't have time to go to 12-step meetings. And someone would say to me, well, you used to have time to go to the pub the whole time. And then I remember someone saying, like, give the 12 steps, which is like my thing, give it an hour of your time. minute or give you 23 back. Is that what you find with meditation and journaling? Absolutely. Yeah,

like you not everyone's got an hour, of course, and it doesn't need to be an hour either. There's a great book called The Miracle Morning and there's a practice in there called Savers. And he talks, even if you've got five minutes, you can do your silence, your affirmations, your visualization, your exercise and your reading in like five minutes, like a minute each. When you get deep in a meditation, time stops. So you can feel like you've been in that meditation seriously for hours. been in there for half an hour. So you feel like you've got time back, you know, seriously. But everyone can find the time. It's like trying to get out of bed earlier. People can't get out of bed early, but you can. You've just got to train yourself to do it. So I always say, actually, talking about manifestation,

my clients say to me, why are you so hot on a morning routine? And I say, because if you can't nail a morning routine, which means getting out of bed earlier, how can you rewire that thought? Same thing. If you've got that challenging thought that you're going to fight, same thing. Fighting at out of bed an hour earlier. Well, I kind of find like getting out of bed is the most challenging thing I have to do every day. Mel Robbins posted a great video of this, not going on her Instagram. Her therapist taught her just roll out of bed. Oh, okay.

I might try that. She's honestly, if you go on her feed and try and find it, she literally says it's the most hysterical video. Her husband's recording her. She's like, the morning you just don't want to get out of bed, you just roll out with the cover still on you and you crawl to like the bathroom. or whatever, and then you get up. It's so, and it works. Or what I found is, you know, you put your phone on charge on the opposite side of the bedroom and when the alarm goes off, you have to get out of bed. And it's just that initial sort of like getting out. Yeah, because I'm also like, I think my brain's always like, just go to bed earlier,

briny. So you get, so then, and that still doesn't make it better. So then I would say, actually, in defence for you, that, so there's two type, two times, which are the best, morning or evening. And the reason you are. want to do it is because of your brain waves. So I spoke about that. But in the morning, our brain waves are slower. The moment we hit our phones, social media, we sort of interact with the day, our brains speed up. So it's harder to quieten them down. So if you meditate either first thing in the morning, a journal first thing in the morning, or last thing at night. So try and find in your life, like if you've got kids, a manic household, you've got to do everything.

It's just not the time. What if you could do it when the kids are down? Is it in your book that the last five minutes of the day can be the most powerful? Yeah, and also I talk about that a lot on social media because why? When you're about to fall asleep, your brain waves are going from beta brainwaves. And then when we're in front of the telly, we sometimes feel ourselves go like that. And that is your brainwaves slowing down into alpha. Alpha is the first level of the subconscious. So you know the concept daydreaming?

Yeah. That is because one minute you're in. the day, the world, which is beta, the next you're, you could be in a classroom and then the next you're literally lost in your imagination, that's dream. And that's when you're floating from beta to alpha, beta to alpha. So you come down to alpha, you're now in the dream scape. So the last five minutes you're coming down is alpha and theta. So you can hold a vision of your future so much easily, so much more easy than you can like at 12 noon, for example. Right. Okay. Gosh, I've literally just gone into a trams. I've got so much out of this conversation. Anyway, so what would be

your second crucial thing? So for me, running, and that's because I've got a very busy mind, and running for me is doing two things. It's keeping me fit, but also it's a kinetic type of visualization. So kinetic visualization is bringing balance to what's already moving really fast. So a lot of people, including me, actually struggle to sit still and meditate. I actually see darkness when I visualize. 50% of people get up can be really good to see us or visualise us. For me, I'm really good at daydreaming. I'm really good at running. I don't like running with headphones. I like to just run. And when I'm running, the movement tends to balance the movement of my racing thoughts. Yeah. It creates this coherence, which is balance. And it's easier to visualize.

Yeah. Oh my God. Absolutely. I'm with you. Yeah. That's when I do my manifesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's an actual thing. It's called kinetic visualization. Does anyone else, when I run and I do listen to music and I'll be listening to my show tunes or whatever, and I will be, I would say, I would have previously said fantasizing about things I want to happen in my life, like being on Straitly Com dancing or whatever, but I'm

now going to reframe that as manifesting. But you know, when you're doing that, you're actually seeing yourself on there, though, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. So you're not fantasizing. You are manifesting in that moment. Oh my God, I've just got so excited. I intuitively can, no, you will be on strictly. Stop it. I'm going to cry. And we're going to play this podcast back when you're on.

You are going to be. But so whenever you see yourself doing something as if it's done, that's not fantasy. that's actually modifying probability and manifesting in that. I'm modifying probability by visualising as if it's done. I can't wait for my next run. Because fantasising is going,

I really want to be honest, strictly, I really want to be, that's seeing as if it's not done. Oh no, no, I can see it happening. As if it's done is exactly. But that's an interesting thing because running is, I find it's the time when I definitely

it's like I'm regulating and everything is settling and I'm and I can focus on actually what matters. Yeah, because you can't in that moment go on your phone like you nothing else can sort of exist when you're running because you know you're on a run. Whereas when you're like in your house meditating like you could go, I'm just going to stop now and get up and go and get a coffee.

You sort of can't when you're outrunning and especially when your thoughts are racing, it's just the perfect time, especially when you listen. Like in the book I talk about music. Music tends to bring up memories, but I say find music that you can associate with a future memory. And then every time you listen to that music, it puts you in the landscape of you being on strictly, for example. So I create what's called a visualization playlist. So when I do run, and the reason I don't listen to music in Cornwall when I'm running is because you could get knocked over sometimes down the lanes.

Unless I'm on the beach. But it is really powerful, exactly that. It's a really great. Because here's the other thing. You don't have to manifest just in meditation in your house. You're manifesting it in every second. So even if you're running, you're manifesting, you know. Wow.

Okay. Running. Yeah. So that's the second. Okay. Last but not least, what would your third crucial thing for your well-being be? The most important thing my wife and I do is protect our energy from energy thieves. Oh, I love this.

Yeah. defend your energy. From energy thieves. Some of those thieves are your nearest and dearest. Some of them aren't. The ones that aren't are easier to cut out. Let's be brutal. Yeah.

You know, and Corrassand and I tend to say, does this person fill up our energy tank? Or deplete it? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Is it the type of conversation where you go out for dinner and all you've done the whole night is listen to their life?

Yeah. And you come out and going, that was exhausting. Or actually, was it 50-50 where they asked you questions and you asked them? And it tended to be this like sort of filling up of each other's energy tank. So we tend to do that. We prioritize our energy. But with the nearest and dearest, who are often unconsciously really negative, but they're family and you can't cut them out, let's just say, you don't want to.

You go, well, look, I'm just conscious of their unconscious. They don't see it. I do. So what we do is we sort of, when we go into an environment where we know we might, might be triggered or we know we might like someone might steal our energy. We just rehearse first. Okay, this person typically does this that annoys me. So I'm going to rehearse ahead of the event, how I'm going to be in that moment. I know it's going to happen. I'm going to allow it in through one ear and out the other. Or I'm going to imagine like an energy bubble around me and I'm going to

walk in there and protect that energy. And it's, we check in all the time. Smile and wave. Yeah. We say like who's stealing our energy at the moment, you know, who's filling it up, the energy tank. Such a good thing because actually, when you just said that, who's stealing your energy at the moment, I suddenly thought of like, just like a work thing and a person, you know, and I was like, oh my God, yeah, and they, it is like, it's, there's a, there's a saying about resentments are like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. But the truth is, Brony, they're not stealing your energy. you are by your own thinking.

No, I'm allowing. There's got nothing to do with the other person. It's their trigger that creates this thought. So that's why we rehearse ahead of the event that we're not going to allow it to slip by our awareness because it's our own thought that steals our energy. Right, and the responsibility is all in us. It's got nothing to do with the other person.

They're just a reflection. Like, you know, it's because like if we just moan about this person, like we're moaning. Yeah, more energy is going. And it's like where you place your attention is where you place your energy. So I'm going to give this thought energy? I know they're going to trigger me.

I know they are. They're 70 years old. They're programmed. You know, I'm not going to change them. But I can be conscious of their unconscious. There's a great saying, which, another great saying, which is your family know how to press your buttons because they installed them.

And we could say that, that, yeah, they're our greatest teachers. They are, and I like that twisting. I like also turning someone, someone who is, you might call your enemy or your, you know, your greatest irritant into your teacher is such a powerful thing as well. Gosh, Matt, you have, I feel like I have had like six months worth of therapy in this, in these two sessions. Thank you so much, Matt Cook.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. I've loved it. A huge thank you to Matt. If today's chat has left you curious or you've got your own ways of manifesting happiness, message me on Instagram at A Life of BrinyPod. And if you enjoyed this episode,

a little review or follow means more than you could ever know. But most importantly, take a deep breath. Enjoy the weekend ahead and remember your closer to your dreams than you think. Mwoh!