Rituals have been used across time and space as long as human beings have been humans. We have used rituals to pass down information about our culture and society as ways to connect to the divine.

More importantly, rituals are a really powerful way to quiet the ego. That part that gets into fight-flight overthinking, quiet anxiety that goes into the past and future and creates more of a sense of peace, well-being, and connection, and connects us to our guides to our higher self, and it doesn’t need to be that complicated.

Rituals are really powerful grounding forces in our world that has so much unpredictability, whether it comes from the news or from just different challenges that we encounter in our day and with just life.

Rituals help to give us a sense of well-being, peace, connection, and a sense of control.

When we get overwhelmed, the ego is the part of our self that is like the protective shield of our spirit. Our ego is what gets overwhelmed, and our ego is what gets into fight-flight-freeze. Our ego is what gets into anxiety and overthinking. It’s because the ego likes to try and protect us from the world around us, but as we know, you can’t protect yourself from what’s to come.

The moment that we identify with our ego on that part, what we do is we self separate from life. We say, “Oh, it’s dangerous. I’m going to self-separate out, so I’m going to go into my head into overthinking and into ego defense.” but when we’re in the ego, it disconnects us from the present moment, disconnects us from our spirit, disconnects us from places of support and rituals are wonderful ways that we can give the ego a really simple tool. Something that it knows what to look forward to every day so that it can come quiet and calm down.

It’s kind of like when you have a schedule. If you know every night that you’re going to brush your teeth as a ritual, that’s one way that you can start to even tell your body we’re unwinding and we’re going to bed.

You might have a simple ritual in the morning of drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. That’s a morning ritual. These are the things that help create consistency and continuity in our lives so for you, do you have any rituals that you have?

The ritual that I use is I drink a glass of water every morning before my cup of coffee. That’s one simple ritual I use to connect with my spirit, and we can use rituals with intention. This is my intended purpose to help connect to my spirit.

Those rituals become powerful ways that we can help to support ourselves better, create more self-compassion, create more choice, create more internal space, and very genuinely quiet anxiety, quiet overthinking, quiet that part of our defensive ego. 

So, first of all, a ritual can be as simple as your cup of coffee in the morning, but the important part is the intention. I intend to have my cup of coffee and be completely present. No phone, no distraction. 

This is my moment to connect within, and it has to have a few different things.

1. 
   
   1. Intention
   2. It’s repetitive. We do the same thing over and over and over and over again. The more repetitive it is, the more that it’s literally the exact same thing, and the more that it will give our mind something to attach to. Something to quiet. It’s like, if you give a dog a bone to quiet itself.
   3. Consistency. We have to do it consistently. A ritual isn’t a ritual if you do it once and then completely forget. That does not work.

The big thing too is to make sure that your rituals are simple.

You can pull rituals from your lineage. For example, I come from a catholic lineage so we’re praying the rosary as a prayer is a simple ritual that has been passed down in my family and the repetitiveness. And we can see that these tools that we use throughout cultures like Malas, Rosaries, and other things like that that give our brains something to repeat and connect.

So we can use tools like a rosary or a mala something that comes from our own personal belief system. Those are really wonderful ways because it not only helps us to connect to the lineage of our families, things that have been passed down, but it quiets our mind.

One of my mom’s prayers that she has taught to my sister and me is you know, “Holy mother father god. Move me in and my spirit in the direction of my highest good.”

That alone as a prayer as a way as a ritual of turning something over to our higher selves is a beautiful way that we can use to connect so you can use prayer as a powerful ritual.

Another beautiful ritual that I love to use is chanting. Mantras are really wonderful chants.

There are all sorts of different mantras. Mantras are basically ways that we can organize our internal self even on a cellular level. It gives our mind something to do and is usually repeated 108 times so you say them over and over again. It gives our ego something to do and allows that place to quiet so we can better connect with our own spirit. 

And more importantly, what’s really interesting is that sound organizes us on a vibrational level (a really cool thing). I would encourage you to google sand on a plate with sound and you’ll notice what’s really cool is every time they put these sound waves through these plates the sand organizes into different structures into different shapes and it is the same thing when you use chanting.

So you can go to the insight timer app. It’s a great app that has tons of different chants. tons of different ways that you can use to connect.

Thirdly, you can have it be as simple as a cup of coffee or a morning ritual.

For example, my morning ritual is 20 minutes of yoga, some breath work, and some meditation, and the more that I practice my rituals the more that I know how to that I have a really rich tool kit to build from (even when I’m noticing that I’m anxious).

So I want to ask you, what are some of the rituals that you’ve had in your life?

Whether they’re holiday rituals for example it might be the Christmas tree angel on top every year. That’s a ritual that we have.

Rituals give us context. They help to provide depth and they remind us that we are connected so don’t overlook the power of a simple ritual. Even if it’s just drawing a glass of water before your cup of coffee.

So tell me what your favorite rituals below are. What are your favorite tools to connect you to your rituals? I would absolutely love to hear from you.

Sending you all my love,

Sonia