Do You Have Ritual in Your Life?

Every morning, the first thing I do when I get up is ‘gong’ my singing bowl. It makes the most beautiful ringing sound and I let it drift off into silence.

With this action I create the intention of having a wonderful day. It doesn’t take long, once the gong is done I spend maybe 30 seconds expressing gratitude for my life and well being, and putting positive thoughts into my mind.

That’s the start of my daily routine.

We all have them, regular actions that we consistently follow, day in and day out. For the most part we don’t think about them very much. Activity abounds! We move from one project to the next, struggling to keep our lives in balance between the details that make up our hectic, action filled days.

Do these actions give us meaning? For the most part NO!

Rather than feeling connected with the world we often feel alienated, lonely, out of touch. We interact superficially with ones we love and don’t realize the deterioration of relationships until it becomes a serious issue.

Now action does have meaning when it becomes a ritual. And an action becomes a ritual through intent. For instance – my daily affirmations and gratitude moment with my singing bowl.

That is a ritual. There is personal, internalized intent behind my action.

Ritual is important. Action with intent can help address our need to feel connected –to ourselves, our families, to each other and the world.

There are two aspects of ritual, heart and hand or you could say intention and action. They work together and focus our minds on the implications of what we are doing.

When we pay attention to both what we are doing and why, that brings us to being fully present in the moment. We can create that quality of being called “mindfulness”. We are fully experiencing our Now. We understand the meaning to our action.

I use ritual, symbols and words within ceremony to mark moments and milestones of transition in the lives of individuals, couples, families, communities, organizations and businesses.

Whether paying respect, moving forward in life, accomplishing a major goal or creating a change in direction; when you honor that experience with personalized meaning that represents your individual beliefs and convictions, you bring more to your quality of life.

Endeavor to put ritual into your life.

Think about how to do this – I’ll carry this notion on in future blogs, examples for ceremony and in everyday life. Create mindfulness!!