Adding Ritual to Your Life - Creating Morning and Bedtime Rituals
Whether intentional or not, you’re creating ritual…
…by choosing your action, you’re designing your life.
When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled. ~Xun Kuang
Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way. ~Conor McGregor
We don't have too much ritual in our life anymore. And these life symbols which people rely on to keep their feeling of well being, that life is not too bad after all are required more and more. ~John Hench
It wasn’t that long ago in the arch of human evolution that much of a person’s life would be governed by little rituals. Morning prayers; small devotionals to household gods or ancestors; or for well-to-do families, the rituals of formal manners and the expectations of society.
Yet, in our modern world and the chaos of rapid change and growth, many of those traditional rituals have been cast aside. We’ve replaced them with the ritual of your phone! The apps you check obsessively and the friends you text without thinking. How you make your coffee or the way you shake someone’s hand when you’re first introduced.
Whether you mean to or not, you’re creating ritual. You’re engaging in a set of patterned behaviors that give you a specific feeling. Perhaps your ritual is to drink coffee and Facebook stalk your ex? Or hunching down on public transportation while you play Cookie Jam? Maybe it’s the ritual of (gasp!) going for a cigarette or hitting the JUUL when you need a break from your work?
Ritual will happen. It will happen to you; or you can choose to use it to your advantage.
Because what are rituals for? They’re used to evoke a feeling. To provide catharsis. For protection or motivation or to align the values of a group of people. You can use ritual in your daily life for exactly the same things. By being intentional with your time and mind you can craft the emotion you’re trying to evoke, use it to get past or over something, or to calm and reset yourself.
Below are a few ideas to get you started:
Building a Morning Ritual
How you start the day sets the tone. Get out your journal, get somewhere quiet, and get quiet with yourself. Ask yourself these questions:
How do I want to feel in the morning?
What are my typical first thoughts of the day? What do I want them to be?
What do I do now when I first wake up?
As you answer these questions, no doubt you had some reactions about where you are and what you want for yourself. Next, make a list of what you want your morning to be like.
Ok, now the juices are flowing! Order your list into a set of actions, beginning with the time you wake up.
Make sure you give yourself enough time as you adjust your actions. This might mean waking up earlier so you don’t feel rushed.
I’ll level with you: changing your morning is one of the hardest things to do. So often our morning habits are deeply ingrained, even from childhood, and can take time. Change one thing at a time, starting with the first action from when you wake up. By changing only one action at a time, you’re not overwhelming yourself. Here’s my own example:
Get up at 5a - shut off alarm (if it’s going off)
Use the restroom
Meditate for at least 10 minutes
Yoga for another 10 minutes
Check my phone while I make coffee
Review my day in my journal (prepped the night before)
Make and eat breakfast sitting at the table
Not too long ago my routine was check phone, make coffee, sit on phone and drink coffee, gaze at journal and feel frustrated. By beginning with meditation and movement, instead of phone and coffee, I have the chance to choose my mindset for the upcoming day.
Building a Bedtime Ritual
Similar to your morning ritual, how you end your day can set the tone for the next day. This is even more true if you struggle with your sleep! When I work with a client on their sleep challenges I always start with asking “what time do you have to get up? OK, now count back 8.5 hours, that’s what time you have to be in bed.” You can’t image the number of stressed looks I get.
“And, you have to start your sleep ritual 30 minutes before that.” That often equals overwhelm.
But the science is fairly conclusive: maintenance in the body and brain happen during sleep. And the adverse effects of not sleeping over a long period of time are numerous and severe later in life.
Hopefully you’re convinced.
It’s time to pull out the journal again:
What helps you relax before bed? (other than something on a screen)
What can you do the night before to make the next day successful?
How do you want your body to feel when you get into bed? What would help with that?
How can you prime your mind for restful sleep?
Just like you did with your morning, consider what actions you can take to prepare yourself for bed and put them in time order.
For most of my clients and students it’s easier to change their evening habits than morning because they’re less automatic, though that may not be true for you.
My current evening includes:
Screens off 1 hour before bed (ok, I check my phone sometimes…)
Brush teeth
Journal the day, include some gratitude, and map out tomorrow
Lay in bed in a restorative yoga posture, bolstered with pillows, and read.
I normally only make it a page or 2 before I pass out.
As you craft these morning and evening rituals for yourself or your household, be patient. Habit change takes time, and being intentional with your actions takes energy.