Dr. Cheri Erdman, Celebrant

Serving Greater Daytona Beach Area, Volusia County, and Central Florida 

Simple, Everyday Rituals for Individuals

by Dr. Cheri Erdman, Celebrant
Originally printed in
The Island Voice

July/August 2008

In a previous column I wrote about simple everyday rituals for families, called sustenance rituals. A sustenance ritual adds continuity and regularity to one’s life. It makes being alive a mindful experience, rather than a scheduled experience. 

Sustenance rituals can be adapted to your individual life. These mindful acts are important because they allow you to take a moment to pause, reconnect with yourself, breathe and set your intentions for your next activity, or for your whole day. They help you to express yourself in a measured and deliberate manner. 

You probably have simple, everyday routines such as having a morning cup of tea, going for a mid-afternoon walk, or making time to read before heading off to bed. The difference between these routines and sustenance rituals is the intentions you set. If you are doing these things automatically, they become mindless habits, and not rituals that can calm, center and sustain you.

 Changing the above activities into sustenance rituals looks like this: “I intend to relax with my tea, to enjoy this moment thoroughly”; “My walk today is to clear my mind and leave my last project behind”; “I am reading to relax my mind for sleep.”

 By weaving everyday ritual into your life you can begin to untangle its complications. You’ll discover some peace and quiet in which to renew your strength, experience clarity, or find a private moment to breathe deeply before you begin your next task.

 These ideas are meant to help you to create your own simple, everyday rituals:

• Create a personal space you can go to for the purpose of centering yourself – it can be a table with items on it that remind you of what is important in your life. Visit that space at least once a day to reconnect with yourself.

• Morning rituals can help you begin each day with peace and optimism, believing in your ability to cope with whatever the world hands you. Take five minutes to be with yourself at the start of the day, consciously expecting the best.

• Evening rituals can help you let go of the day’s events so you can experience more restful sleep. A few minutes before bedtime take some deep breaths to quiet your mind, then write down everything you did that day. Go to bed and breathe deeply, proudly remembering your accomplishments.

• A purification ritual can be done during a simple shower by mindfully allowing the water to wash away any emotional residue, clearing your mind and body for what happens next.

• Meditation, prayer, and moments of intentional silence are centering during a hectic day.

• Rest and retreat from the usual. For example, have a real Sunday Sabbath in which you are quiet and introspective rather than busy. 

If you look at your day there are probably times in which you are already performing some actions meant to nurture you . . . but they have become habit. Imbue those activities with intention and you’ve transformed them into sustenance rituals .

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