Ritual Pleasures


It’s been a pleasure to tap away on my laptop today, looking down at the intricate beauty of the peacock-influenced henna patterns swirling up my hands to my wrists. After an afternoon at my friend Kate’s pre-wedding Mehndi get-together, we’ve all been adorned with stunning original designs drawn freehand by a Mehndi artist. As rituals go, this is a pretty cool one – it’s fabulous fun, as well as an opportunity for the bride to spend her wedding eve with her good friends doing girlie stuff to mark the passage of her life from single to married woman.

Of course that got me thinking about the importance of ritual – not that my mind is ever far away from that kind of subject – and how rare it is that we mark the major events of our lives with ritual any more. Culturally, as many of us move away from formalised religion, the rituals drop away too. Yet that leaves a void where we fail to honour a natural desire to celebrate or reverently mark transitions and passages in our lives.

In essence, ritual provides recognition – like a psychological line in the sand – and support for both the uplifting and challenging times of life. We gather together to acknowledge our shared experience and to offer our love and friendship in the good times and the bad. It offers us comfort when we need it most.

Beyond the classic spiritual sense of ritual, there are also the everyday rituals that offer us support and bring us joy. There’s the morning coffee that wakes us up and signals a mental shift into the working day. Or the Sunday morning brunch over piles of newspapers that sets the scene for a leisurely day. Maybe it’s a Friday night with friends that makes you feel connected with life outside work or family, or a regular meditation that keeps you de-stressed and on the straight and narrow.

The point is we all have rituals in our lives, whether we choose to see them that way or not. I’d put money on the fact that you have a particular order for the way you put your make-up on, clean your teeth or even put credit cards in your wallet. We humans are creatures of habit. It makes us feel safe. Ritual activities also helpfully signal that we’re ready to move into a different state, for example whatever preparation you make before going to bed at night is a cue to your mind and body that it’s time to start shutting down.

Doing the same thing repetitively sets up pathways in the brain that pave the way for you to enter that state more easily each time you do it. That’s why it helps to use the same physical position each time you meditate – after a while, your body and your mind start quieting down as soon as you assume the position. You can use this to your advantage by anchoring that feeling to a small movement and a ritual saying, so that every time you perform that action you’ll feel as peaceful or joyful as you did when you first set up that association of emotional state and movement.

Try this next time you’re feeling particularly relaxed and peaceful – pinch your thumb and index finger together, while saying a phrase that reflects that feeling, for example ‘I am at peace’. Keep repeating the phrase as you put your fingers together and over time just the motion itself will begin to induce a sense of peace. Then you can use that motion to help you calm down in times of stress. The body has memory that can be tapped into to help you re-create any emotional state you want to experience more often.

This week, take a look at the role ritual plays in your life and ask yourself if the rituals you’re unwittingly creating have a positive association for you. If you’re caught in a round of regular activities that feel a bit stale, start building some positive routines. Shake things up a bit. Think about where you can turn small daily acts into greater pleasures. If there are bigger transitions taking place, consider getting a few friends together to create your own special ritual or simply do something yourself that helps you to mark the occasion. Get creative – and you might even want to treat yourself to a henna tattoo for a slightly more permanent marker!

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 14 Apr 08)