Wow, what an extremely generic title! It's almost as if it's been left entirely up to interpretation, opening the door for you to talk about all sorts of things you do when no one else is around!
So I found this fluffy article about rituals and rolled my eyes throughout the whole thing...But it did get me thinking about some of my personal rituals, and I enjoyed the train of thought. I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to think about their personal rituals and share them, if they feel so inclined.
- According to sociologist Robert Wuthnow, rituals are any actions or events that have symbolic meaning beyond their instrumental value...A ritual is something done to prepare for action.
- Surprisingly, the majority of the mentioned rituals were neither religious nor communal. Rather, they were personal, private, and occasionally angry. “One woman wrote about gathering all the pictures of her and her ex-boyfriend, taking them to the park where they met, and tearing them up. She made a point of saying ‘even the ones where I looked good,’ which I loved.”
- My mom’s friend had a personal ritual. Every Thursday night, she would come home after a long day of teaching dance classes. Then she’d climb into bed with a carton of vanilla ice cream. The end.
This story stuck with me not because of the ice-cream-in-bed part, though to my child self that did sound pretty good. For me, the real hero of this story was the solitude. Because a ritual feels extra special when it is just for you.
Anyway, define "ritual" and "private" however you want. What's some weird shit you get up to when you're on your own?
Super duper simple BUT
Before I leave the house, my right hand traces a path from my temple to my right pocket, right belt loop and back right pocket. The modern version of 'Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch' I suppose. 'Glasses, keys, phone, wallet' doesn't have quite the same ring to it though.
I've locked myself out of my house and car a bunch of times as a younger person and the experience ingrained this ritual rather deeply. Lessons will be taught until they are learned.
Also, full deep clean of the house before every trip, doesn't matter if it's two days or two weeks.
Nothing worse than coming home from a nice vacation to a pigsty.
I recently started the same ritual before a trip, I’ll clean everything and have all my laundry done but having roommates makes it trickier. I can only guarantee my own room and nothing puts me in a sour mood faster than the rest of the house being a disaster after a solid 12 hours of travelling.
I have roommates for five months of the year. One of them has been in Croatia for a couple months. The other has showered twice in that time.
He has, however, played Smash Brothers until 3am every night. I once went to Seattle for the weekend and the dude had not visibly moved when I came home 48 hours later.
After visiting some University friends I realized how lucky I've been with flatmates the past few years. I've lived with my best mate since about 2014, we would change houses when we can and slowly upgrade from student freezers to actual homes.
Since around 2016 we've culled the flatmates down to our respective partners and there's never been an argument, no cleaning roster needed, no drama at all.
Shit the conversations around using another person's stuff amounts to just Always Sunny references:
"Hey I'm out of eggs can I snag two of yours?"
"I am untethered and my rage knows no bounds"
Gonna miss him next year, but I certainly don't miss the previous setup with 5 randoms in a house.
I can honestly say that I hadn't seen failure until I saw Los Angeles failure. I again suspect it's due to the fundamental impedance of the place; thenewgreen was in town a couple days ago and I missed him because it would have been 90 minutes and $40 in a Lyft (and I had had 3 hours of sleep and needed to be up at 5am). Public transportation? It would have been four hours. Biking? Two hours across turf where I have never been closer to dying.
The dude spends two hours each way in traffic for a job that pays $18 an hour. And he's 150 lbs overweight which makes everything impossible. I realized last year that he basically goes through life like me... If I had to carry my wife on my back everywhere I went. At which point you're gonna do what with your free time, exactly?
You're going to cocoon.
Whenever I come home from work, I immediately greet my fiance and land in the comfort of his arms. This has recently extended to him lifting me up and cracking my back basically as a reflex. I feel so loved, and it's really hard to bring any work stress home after this.
As for a ritual with just me... Maybe that comes after I graduate. I do remember other rituals I had involving writing and organizing but that was before my adult job and an extremely fulfilling relationship. It's interesting to think about how my rituals have changed as I grow as person and seem to correlate with the different things influencing me at any given time. I want to think that I'm more than just what I do for work but sometimes I think I draw a lot of personal pride from having accepted a role of responsibility and fulfulling it.
This is adorable!
- I draw a lot of personal pride from having accepted a role of responsibility and fulfulling it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this, especially because you've got so much else going on. Your fiance sounds lovely, and it sounds like your personal life is satisfying as well. I'm happy for you, if not a little jealous :)
Thank you!
I get referred to as "stupidly wholesome" sometimes and I suppose stuff like this is why. I guess I'm just a very gentle lil soul!
I think mostly my work is fulfilling because I get to take all the good that I feel and shower it on the little kids I care for. Without getting into too much detail it's a very at risk group of young people who are underserved and underappreciated.
That's such a compliment! You must be a very positive person to be around :)
It sounds like you're doing some really important work, those kids are lucky to have you helping them out and showing them affection! Does it ever get tough to stay positive with them? I think I'd struggle with that
I wake up at 6:16 every day, because I was born at 6:16. The only time this rule is broken is when I need to be up earlier.
During the school year, the 6:16 wake up is followed by making my bed, breakfasting with a friend, and the slog across campus for an hour and a half or so of cello practicing before class.
Right now my rituals are all out of whack because I have neighbors and I play a loud instrument. So I twiddle my thumbs before work and then practice after work. So weird.
First, I love your ritual! It has this sense of gravitas around it that I enjoy. Sounds like your strict adherence to it has given you a bit of dead time in the mornings, though! What does it mean to "twiddle my thumbs" during this time, and do you wish you could use it for something else?
I do have dead time now! I've been practicing cello in the morning for the past 10 years, so it's definitely weird. Twiddling my thumbs currently consists of reading and cleaning, though it doesn't feel quite the same. I can't wait to be back in a place where I can practice in the morning!
I'm a spiritual and religious person - that brings a bunch of ritual with it.
On the daily:
I pray individually. Yes... good old fashioned man talking to the sky, believing someone is listening. It's my time to reflect and have a serious gratitude session.
I pray with my wife.
I pray with my family.
I make the bed - not because I like a neatly made bed - but for the reason listed above "any actions or events that have symbolic meaning beyond their instrumental value". Making my bed is the first success of the day and sets me on a course of success for the rest of it.
I brush and floss. I know.... it's probably NOT more important than it's instrumental value... but it IS RIDICULOUSLY IMPORTANT and I regret not doing it sooner. I have spent TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars on my family's mouths.... do your future self a favor. FLOSS.
On the weekly:
I date my wife. We go out on a date at least once a week. It's important for the long term stability of our relationship and marriage. It's definitely meaningful beyond the instrumental value. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Family Time. Every Monday night (sometimes we move it) my wife and I and our kids get together as a family, sing songs, play instruments, talk about our week, read something inspiring, and just connect generally.
I have various assignments from church that involve helping others. These assignments change often and morph slightly, but the core principle and objective remains the same: serve others.
I attend a weekly service where religious rites are performed. Some weeks I am going through the motions. Some weeks I am really focused and it's a powerful time of reflection and re-dedication.
On the regular:
There are other service projects, church social events and religious rites that I participate in on a less than weekly, but more than annual, but not quite monthly or quarterly basis that are equally important and serve others.
Not currently in the regiment (but looking for ways to incorporate or re-incorporate):
Yoga - I used to do 20-30 minutes every night before bed. I miss that.
Exercise - This is a no brainer. I should, but don't... and I have no explanation for it. There are some plans in the works...
Read - I actually do read... but I need to read about five times as much as I do now.
- I date my wife. We go out on a date at least once a week. It's important for the long term stability of our relationship and marriage. It's definitely meaningful beyond the instrumental value. I can't recommend it highly enough.
This is cute! I do something similar with my girlfriend, since we're both so busy (me with a new job, her with one last year of college). Do you have a specific day you like to go on a date, or is it flexible as long as you do it once per week?
We did the 'reserved time' approach for awhile. It was nice to have a day or an evening that I knew I would get to spend with her. We fell out of that habit for awhile, I should talk to her about starting that again!
As a whole, I didn't realize you were so religious! That's cool, though :) I suppose your rituals are more actual rituals than mine!
- Exercise - This is a no brainer. I should, but don't... and I have no explanation for it. There are some plans in the works...
If you can floss to save money (and for your health), just try to apply the same mindset here! Maybe you could combine this with yoga and start a bedtime ritual of calisthenics? Or with audiobooks, if your goal in reading is to just consume the information
I listen to music in the shower and practice little dance moves first thing in the morning.
Some for lifting/gym training. Very specific things that don't do anything outside of mark mental cues for when it's 'go-time'.
The butt wiggle before a deadlift, the hands clasped before bench, the head nod (3x, no more, no less) before unracking a bar for a squat.
Actually, training itself is a sort of ritual. It signals the end of my day - I walk from work to my gym, then go about my training for the next couple of hours. Once I'm done there I'll hop on the bus or get in my car if I drove, and that's my day done. The ride home I'll listen to some soft music and unwind, before cooking dinner (which I find relaxing) and hanging out with my partner and flatmates.
An important one though, whenever I get home and my partner is already home, the first thing I do is seek her out and kiss her as a greeting. She's on to this now, so she'll hide and I have to earn that kiss. If I beat her home I'll hide and she has to find me for said smooch. I also leave for work before she gets up, so our morning ritual ends with me giving her a kiss on the cheek, and she'll sleepily turn her head to get another kiss on the lips, then I'm out the door.
I asked her once if this annoyed her as she's clearly still sleeping, but she said whatever her sleepiness conveys, she'd be distraught if I changed it up now.
As I've been trying to stay away from nicotine in the last week or so, I've developed a little ritual for dealing with cravings:
I ran a thought experiment based on a comment nil left for me (specifically this one) that got me thinking about the "animal experience" that we go through - our subconscious brain processes tell us that we're hungry, and we go seek out food based on our higher order thoughts...But we're still driven by our cravings, whether it be for food or sex or nicotine. For the sake of conversation, assume we're driven by our needs and that our conscience thought is a justification for those needs (whether you believe it or not).
So we've got this pipeline of urges that are pushed up to a certain level of awareness. All day, I have to sit in my cube and receive orders through this pipeline from my stupid lizard brain. Wouldn't it be neat if I could cram ideas back down the pipe, just to show that stupid lizard brain who's in charge?
So that's what I've been doing. Every time I feel a craving for nicotine, I spend a few minutes consciously attempting to feel satisfied with something. I'll just close my eyes, and think "Wow, I sure am full right now!" until the nicotine craving goes away.
The most insane part of this whole ritual is that it's actually been working for me. I'll try to feel satiated until I actually feel satiated, then I'll get back to whatever I was doing!
(By the by, the whole "Quit Smoking" thing is going well. I'm over my physical dependency, which is good. I had a really bad day at work trying to stay focused on anything other than how bad I wanted a smoke...But I made it, and it's getting easier!)
Thanks! It's been difficult, but I'm glad I'm doing it. In general, I've been trying to replace the parts of my daily routine that involve nicotine with something else - coffeee, reading, music, etc.
It's sometimes hard to not be distracted by a craving, but they're significantly less annoying now. I think (and hope) that this'll only continue to get easier :)
I've noticed that the quality of my paintings significantly deteriorate when I'm drinking.
I've also noticed that I was abusing marijuana when painting in that I was using it to keep myself awake much later than my body wanted to be awake.
On August 30th I committed myself to one year without the devil's lettuce. I'll let you know how that goes.
Sundays for me is a day of rituals, but from the outside probably looks more like a boring weekly routine. Before 12 I make a shopping list before going to the shared laundry room. While the machine is running I go for a walk in the park if the weather is nice and stop at the grocery store on the way home, otherwise I go straight to the grocery store. When I get home I book the laundry room for the next Sunday, hang the laundry to dry, clean my apartment, pay bills and look at my schedule for the next week. If it's a race weekend I might postpone the cleaning a couple of hours to watch Formula 1 or Indycar.
I've followed this "ritual" for maybe five years now. It started out as a way to deal with depressive episodes by forcing a reset and to start looking ahead and prepare mentally for the next week. After a while it stopped feeling like a chore and I began looking forward to the activities themselves and the small feeling of satisfaction of completing them, so I view it as a sort of secular ritual.
Before taking psychedelics, I place my hands over the substance and send forth as much loving energy as I can muster. When the feeling is right, then I ingest.
Recently I've started adding another aspect of the ritual. After ingesting, I sit in meditation until I feel the substance taking effect in my body. It's a very nice way of becoming aware of how my perception becomes altered.
Daily
1. Shower. I love showers and I do so each and every morning
2. Brush and floss teeth
3. Shave
4. Brush hair
5. Dress
6. Espresso (double)
7. Make the kids breakfast
8. Dress kids
9. Go to work
10. Daily meditation. (some days I miss)
Weekly
1. Tuesday morning Yoga with private instructor. Ashtanga
2. Take-out Tuesdays. We have friends and their kids over to eat take-out
3. Coals and Ice on Sunday's at our pool. Dinner, drinks and swimming with the kids and our friends
4. Starting next week: Thursday afternoon soccer practice. I'm the coach.
5. Saturdays: Soccer games
Most of my rituals revolve around work. I'll not get in to them. They're pretty boring and standard stuff.
I've got a new one! My therapist and I came up with this, since I struggle with feeling like I have to be available for everyone 24/7 or they'll stop loving me.
Saturdays are for me. I leave my phone turned off for the entire day. I wake up early, work out, go for a walk. Maybe I go down to the town creek, maybe I head to my favorite cafe and bring a book. I make music, either writing folk songs or producing some boom bap. I spend a few hours cooking, and eat well. Maybe I hang out with my roommate if he's around, but maybe not. I go to bed around 11.