create more rituals in my life

My first list of rituals will be very simple…

1.) make my bed every morning
2.) drink herbal tea at bedtime while sitting on my yoga mat
3.) do stretches when I wake up
4.) prepare my coffee at night and set the timer
5.) every time I attempt to eat junk food, call myself “officer fatty” mentally and pinch my arm flab

now that I am alert to my desire to have my short pleasurable rituals as part of my life they are beginning to creep in everywhere!. I am going to keep writing about them under my life creatively goal from now on.

I am aiming to build a small alter and had listed the elements that I wanted: colour, buddha, nature etc. My friend Amber gave me a big buddha statue that is perfect for this a week later :)

I am going to make myself a small alter with elements of a spiritual nature that are important to me. As I want this to be of a private nature it will have to be in my bedroom ontop of my dresser drawers. At the moment this is cluttered with my messy jewellery (which needs organising so I will wear it more and can find matching things) so today while I was out at lunchtime I saw this cheap but compact, grown up and classic looking jewellery mini cupboard time thing (basically a box, with doors and drawwers) so I bought it to take care of that problem and make space for my alter at which I will take time with some personal rituals when the mood takes me.

As of this week I am implementing two new rituals to help make my work environment more pleasant and uplifting.

1. Fresh flowers – Each monday I will buy or bring a bunch of fresh flowers to put in a vase on my desk (today I have Earlycheer)

2. My lolly jar – everytime it is emptied out by the hungry lolly eaters I will fill it up completely with 3 new bags.

I am having a hard time at work at the momemnt and I want to try and make myself feel better about being here in anyway I can and since I don’t have much control over the real issues, I am focusing on the little things.

I love going to sleep on clean sheets the first night after remaking the bed with fresh linen. A nice ritual to incorporate into this chore is to spray the sheets with your favorite scent, so you and the bed smell nice :)

I have thought of a great ritual that I will do once every winter each year. Go to the ocean and jump in for a swim no matter how cold it is. It will be a good way to wake up to the freshness of life.

1. daily meditation
2. weekly alter time
3. monthly moon observance
4. date nights with my partner
5. the ultimate ritual of our commitment ceremony

the steps and plan for some of these are private, but i want to list them out here with at least a ‘doing good’ update on a weekly check-in basis.

I have declared monday nites from 8pm onwards to be the time I have a bubble bath and read a book by only candlelight while I soak. Did it last night and it was very very good for me.

from now on whenever I light an incenses stick I will take a moment to think of how my depression/mania is troubling me and then visualise letting it go in the smoke from the stick as it burns.