Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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Self-Care as Ritual

Self-Care as Ritual

Self-care for Americans is often considered a luxury.  Due to our technological demands and addictions (Demons as they are), and the slow slipping of our economic structures, we are often at the mercy of the bottom line at work. Over-paid CEOs and CFOs and their many assistants eat up so, so much of workplace finances. Rush! Rush! Rush! In the 2017 American Psychological Association survey on stress in America, workplace stress and financial worries were major causes of increased emotional reactivity for Americans. Add to this our enormous addiction problems (drugs of abuse, alcohol, nicotine, opioids, cell phones, and “conspicuous consumption” as anormal process).  So instead of healthy self-care many American take the path of least resistance and self-medicate.  To improve psychological and physical health, we need to ritualize self-care practices. We need to make them one of our most important priorities on a regular basis. You may want to note that you must care for your child within. The list below provides some starting points for you to consider. Try as many of these practices as you can, and adopt as ritual a few you really like. Remember effective self-care is bio-psycho-social-spiritual. Ritualize it!

  1. You are transforming at the cellular level – every second some part dies and some part is born, arising and falling
  2. Hot stone massage
  3. Early morning walks
  4. Daily mindfulness, meditation, and yoga
  5. Pray
  6. Mindful movement stretches
  7. A Reiki session
  8. Long warm baths with aroma therapy, oils, and candles
  9. Tea drinking ceremonies
  10. Hot oil foot massage, or whole body hot oil massage
  11. Practice Mindfulness-Based Stress Reductions
  12. Sit with your pet and pet it
  13. Plan for an enjoy one whole day of silence
  14. Un plug everything – TV, computer, cell phones (especially), etc.
  15. Take a break from the evening news
  16. Write brief entries in a happiness journal
  17. Locate a “wisdom mentor” and pay for your time with her/him
  18. Apologize to a person you harmed, make amends
  19. Do  your own personal spiritual practices
  20. Write or recite gratitude lists
  21. Hug a lot – with emotional meaning
  22. Walk in a labyrinth
  23. Recycle – reduce your personal carbon footprint
  24. Walk in nature
  25. Have a conversation with your inner self-helper, that part of you that tries to help you be well
  26. Use helpful mantras – “I an ok the way I am.” ” I have enough right now in my life.” ” All things change.”
  27. Practice deep, slow, calm abdominal breathing often during the day – take a breathing break
  28. Practice active kindness and compassion
  29. Practice self-compassion
  30. Love a lot – with emotional meaning
  31. Radically accept yourself, and stop being self-critical

For more information refer to The Little Book of Self-Care…(2017). New York: Adams Media/Simon and Schuster. See also Thich Nhat Hanh (2017). The Art of Living. New York: Harper Collins.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

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Significance of Beads in Spiritual & Religious Practices

Beads: Significance in Spiritual and Religious Practices

The significance of religious and spiritual practices in the world is enormous.  Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist practitioners make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. The  CIA estimates are that Christians (33%), Muslims (23%), Hindus (14%) and Buddhist (7%) make up the majority of religious followers. Atheists and non-religious believers make up only 12% of the world’s population.   About 11% of the world’s population practices other spiritual and religious traditions.  ALL of the major spiritual and religious traditions have used beads in their practices.  Below I have listed some details about the nature of spiritual/religious beads used by major groups. As you will see the use of beads in spiritual and religious practices is very common.

  1. Roman Catholics use rosary beads (from rose petal “beads” in the rose garden or rosarium) – usually 54 + 5 beads. When beads are used to recite 150 psalms, they are 150 beads long and called patermasters.
  2. Muslims use their misbaha/masbaha, tasbih, subha  beads – usually 99 or 33 beads.
  3. Hindus (from 500 BCE) use mala beads – usually 108 (the cosmos) or 27 beads.
  4. Buddhists (mala) for 108 worldly desires, and Sikhs have generally maintained the Hindu “counts.”
  5. Baha’i uses beads – usually 19 or 99 + 5 beads.
  6. Orthodox Jews, use tassels tallit or tzitzits (Moses – to remember the commandments of god).
  7. Ortodox Greek and Russian Christians use knots as beads – Greek prayer ropes are called kombologian, and Russian prayer ropes are called chotki – Greek knots are 33, 50 and 100 while Russian knots are 33, 100, and 500.
  8. African Masai, Native American, and Greek and Russian Orthodoxy also use beads.

So why use beads in spiritual and religious prayer practices?  There are many, many reasons why beads are used in these spiritual traditions.  However, I will note just a few. Here are some reasons.  Beads are used:

  1. To maintain your counting in prayers practices – in praising the object of your beliefs;
  2. To confirm your level of dedicated practice by repetitions;
  3. To deepen your personal belief by mantra-like or out loud speaking;
  4. To enhance your level of faith by deeper and deeper contemplations about your beliefs; and,
  5. To deepen practice by repeated, deeper contemplations (called lectio divina ) in Catholicism.

Here are some other reasons why beads are used. These reasons deal more with contemporary neuroscience research than with ancient and current religious practices.  These are:

  1. Enhanced learning in frontal and prefrontal areas by verbal/cognitive repetitions;
  2. Temporal area strengthening by hearing the words you are saying either to yourself or out loud;
  3. Multi-sensory applications to bead mantra work – using fingertips (huge representation in the brain) to touch beads as you repeat verbal statements over and over again;
  4. Multi-sensory applications open up pathways for brain plasticity, so your brain chang