There was a time when I did not take personal rituals seriously. Yet, even and especially the great spiritual masters, the most successful and creative achievers (including the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Tony Robbins and Oprah Winfrey) and even those people in your own social circles who maintain a generally stable and healthy disposition are all people with powerful rituals.
While many people flounder in a fog of unconscious and often self-defeating habits, ritual keepers thrive and remain consciously consistent. They are far better equipped than others at keeping a steady, productive and creatively fulfilling path and purpose. And they are much more capable than most at recovering from setbacks. (And believe me, they are all susceptible to setbacks, some staggering ones too!)
The following are rituals that I perform daily. Some people may not consider these so much ritual as routine or habit.
The word ritual carries a sense of the sacred and solemn. We perform rituals in churches, temples and on sacred grounds. We perform rituals at important events such as weddings and funerals. These places and times of ritual carry the solemn and often the sacred as well.
But there are also rituals that commemorate less ‘sacred’ milestones such as birthdays and victories in competitions (eg popping a bottle of champagne).
So what exactly do I mean by ritual in the context of daily life?
The reason why I consider the following rituals rather than routines or habits is because they are performed with the conscious intention of connecting with and embodying the sacred. And here, I use the word ‘sacred’ to signify that which is awe-inspiring and reverential but without theist undertones.
These rituals are for me a deeply intentional and conscious way of connecting with that which is all-pervading and all-encompassing. Some people may refer to this as God but I wish to make it clear that while I often do use the word God, I do not use it in reference to something other than or outside of me and certainly not something of the nature of a super human being. To me, God is Love, the universal and eternal life force of all that is.
I hope that in saying all this, I have added clarity and not confusion to my use of the word ritual for the following daily practices. I also hope that these rituals will inspire you to create your own (if you haven’t already) or accord a spirit of the sacred and profound to those practices that you already perform.
RITUAL ONE – SETTING INTENTION
Before I get out of bed, I set my intention for the day. I offer myself – in thought, word and deed – to the Infinite Wisdom, Power and Possibility of Love for my own good and the good of all else.
I imagine the things that I know I will be doing during the day such as the sessions I have with clients, the meals I will be preparing, the journeys I will take, the writing or planning that I will be doing and so on and I hold this intention over each of them.
I also hold this intention over all the things that I do not yet know of but that I may get engaged in.
After this, I get out of bed and practice Mindfulness meditation for between 20 minutes to 1 hour.
Before I fall asleep at night, I recall several of the things that I experienced during the day, such as a sunset that I witnessed, a conversation I had, an email I sent or received, a video I watched, something I read, the meals I had eaten, different parts of my body and my mind etc. Allowing myself to enjoy these memories is what I consider my expression of gratitude and appreciation.
After this, I intend that I have a beautiful sleep, that all my muscles relax fully, that my mind and body get good rest and get recharged and that I have wonderful dreams where I am doing and experiencing all the things that I want to (including the things that I have already been experiencing).
RITUAL TWO – STAYING CONNECTED
I do at least 3 things each day that help me stay physically and tangibly connected with others and in ways that benefit them also.
For example, I text a daily inspirational message to my children and a nephew. I also call at least one person for a conversation if I am not going to be meeting clients or friends or people in my social networks. And I share some form of message with someone, whether by text or email.
RITUAL THREE – MOVING MINDFULLY
I exercise mindfully in order to ensure energy is allowed to flow freely and freshly through my body. I often do this several times each day for between 1 – 15 minutes. These are often movements inspired by Yoga and Feldenkrais as well as non-stylistic dance movements.
I also try to participate in group exercise such as Aikido whenever I can. And I walk barefoot on the ground (grounding) in order to make conscious physical contact with the rest of nature.
RITUAL FOUR – MAINTAINING SACRED SPACE
I keep my environment as clean and clear as possible because I know how good I feel when it is and how conducive it is to the work that I do which includes significant amounts of time working on my laptop – writing, researching, connecting, planning and of course, working with clients.
Increasingly, I consider all of my living environment sacred space. This includes my unit, my courtyard, the park behind my courtyard, the suburb that I live in, the planet that I am on as well as the entire universe at large.
Now, many people may consider this sense of sacred to be too broad to have any useful meaning. Yet for me, the sacredness of life in all its forms is beyond question. That said, I admit that there are places where the sense of sacred is more keenly felt such as in a temple or on pristine land.
However, I believe that this is not because one place is more ‘sacred’ than another (since all of life is sacred), but that the practice of rituals and conscious attention in, on or around a place can influence our attitudes towards it bouncing the psychic energy of such attitudes back to us.
Meanwhile, the sacred space of my unit offers me an immediate environment in which I can consciously attend to and observe the presence of Life, Love, God, in every form of every item in it, in every movement of the people and things in it, in every relationship between people and things…
RITUAL FIVE- MAINTAINING INNER VIGILANCE
I maintain an inner vigilance – body and mind awareness – throughout the day to the best of my ability. This awareness is a natural and automatic course-correction, enabling me to be responsive in a loving and peaceful way, rather than in a reactive and habitual/mindless way.
It also prevents stuff – thoughts and emotions – from building up without being mindfully attended to and naturally and gently released.
Experience has shown me that such build-up invariably leads to intense states of overwhelm, anxiety and fear which are more difficult to manage though of course, not impossible.
RITUAL SIX – LEARNING, MASTERY AND ‘FAITHFUL ALLOWING’
I nurture a habit of learning and mastery, seeking to not only learn from within my own mind and body through Mindfulness Meditation and Insight Meditation (contemplation), but also to learn from the wisdom of others. These include people that I encounter in person as well as spiritual and other masters, thinkers, explorers, experts and fellow teachers, mentors and life travelers.
I enjoy being curious about people, not so much in the details of their personal lives but in the way they think and the beliefs they have and how this impacts on their sense of wellbeing and personal agency.
My motivation for this is not to become an impressive repository of knowledge and information although it is often true that I gain both. Rather, my motivation is to stay connected with the journeys of others who have gone before me or are travelling this era with me.
I also nurture ‘faithful allowing’ which means that, having handed myself over to the Power and Possibility and Infinite Wisdom of Love (as a first-thing-upon-waking intention), I have faith that all will unfold in Love’s perfect way and time.
Let me explain this.
It means that I do not try to micromanage how things happen. Instead, I hold myself in a state of open receptivity, sensitive to the prompts and nudges (gut feeling/intuition) of Infinite Intelligence which I also refer to as Love, Life, God, the Universe or Holy Spirit.
Of course there are many things that I do that are well rehearsed, familiar and easily performed on autopilot such as having a shower or preparing a meal or writing an email. Yet even in these, attentiveness or mindfulness can be revelatory.
For instance, a moment of mindfulness can alert me to the state of hurrying as I hang out the washing. When I notice it, I am able to pause, slow down and gently inquire into why this is happening. I notice that I have an attitude about hanging out washing – that I don’t regard it as important as the writing that I want to do or the planning for a client or workshop.
It helps me notice that I lack trust that all things will be accomplished by a calm and steady mind and body (as they have proven to countless other times) and that there is therefore no need to hurry.
It also gives me an opportunity to appreciate so many things that the simple act of mindfully hanging out washing alerts me to – things such as the fact that I have good clothes, that I have a machine to wash them and that there is sunshine and wind to dry them. I may also notice the different textures of the different items of clothing and fabric that I am hanging on the line.
All of this eases me into a slightly different state of consciousness where I become aware of a impersonal presence, an all-pervading presence within which, this phenomenal mind and body (that I identify with) is ‘happening’, that this ‘hanging washing’ is ‘happening’, that this ‘noticing’ is ‘happening’, that this ‘sunlight’ is ‘happening’, this ‘wind’ is ‘happening’ and so on.
Everything is just happening. Life is happening expressing itself through everything including this mind and body that I have learned to call ‘I’.
Profound? Indeed! And so effortlessly experiened in a few moments of noticing, of mindfulness.
Such moments alter the quality of being, slowly but surely shaving away the false sense of ‘I’ that I so persistently identify with while revealing the all-encompassing, all-pervading ‘I’ that I fail to recognize and identify with (‘fundamental ignorance’ as Buddhism describes it). And which, Buddhism explains, is the ultimate cause of every kind and instance of suffering.
As you can see, something as mundane, as routine and familiar and easily done on autopilot can be an occasion for insight and momentary liberation from the body-based, isolated, separate, fragile and fear-conditioned ‘I’ that we mistakenly identify with.
Meanwhile, there are many other things that I do and for which I have learned to rely less on familiarity and prior knowledge and more on ‘faithful allowing’. These are often the things which I do not have a clear idea about or feel a great deal of fear, doubt and anxiety over or even resentment or grievance.
For example, having to prepare for an entirely new speaking engagement on a topic that I have never ever spoken to an audience about. Relying on the familiar, the tried and tested methods would be one way of doing it but experience has taught me that this is not only effortful, it also does not feel embodied, authentic and believable.
So, instead, I choose to hold this event in a field of ‘faithful allowing’ by first IMAGINING the desired feelings I want to experience upon preparing for such a talk and then delivering it. I image how I would look, how I would sound, what I might do and what I would like my audience to feel and experience. And then, I INTEND for this to happen.
Finally, I faith-fully (full of faith) ALLOW these good feelings (which I feel in my body) and images which I see in my mind’s eye and feel in my body to guide my thinking, my words and my actions. This approach has proven to be not only so much more fulfilling and successful but also effortless.
It is as if I give myself permission to enter into a ‘flow’ state where content and format are ‘downloaded’ through the channel that I have become. When all this is out there on paper or screen, and often both, I further allow myself to be guided in the use of whatever other means, methods, skills and devices may be necessary including many so called ‘tried and tested’ methods as well as prior knowledge.
You see, ‘faithful allowing’ does not preclude ‘tried and tested’ methods or rational and logical processing. However, it allows for their use in the most timely, effortless and creative ways.
So, these are six of my daily rituals. They are by far the most important and ones which I almost never miss.
What are some of yours? How do they impact on you? Please share them with me here
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