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!
- You are transforming at the cellular level – every second some part dies and some part is born, arising and falling
- Hot stone massage
- Early morning walks
- Daily mindfulness, meditation, and yoga
- Pray
- Mindful movement stretches
- A Reiki session
- Long warm baths with aroma therapy, oils, and candles
- Tea drinking ceremonies
- Hot oil foot massage, or whole body hot oil massage
- Practice Mindfulness-Based Stress Reductions
- Sit with your pet and pet it
- Plan for an enjoy one whole day of silence
- Un plug everything – TV, computer, cell phones (especially), etc.
- Take a break from the evening news
- Write brief entries in a happiness journal
- Locate a “wisdom mentor” and pay for your time with her/him
- Apologize to a person you harmed, make amends
- Do your own personal spiritual practices
- Write or recite gratitude lists
- Hug a lot – with emotional meaning
- Walk in a labyrinth
- Recycle – reduce your personal carbon footprint
- Walk in nature
- Have a conversation with your inner self-helper, that part of you that tries to help you be well
- Use helpful mantras – “I an ok the way I am.” ” I have enough right now in my life.” ” All things change.”
- Practice deep, slow, calm abdominal breathing often during the day – take a breathing break
- Practice active kindness and compassion
- Practice self-compassion
- Love a lot – with emotional meaning
- 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 Sangha
Author of Mindful Happiness
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.
offends, please accept my deeply felt apology.
This last focus includes our mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional experiences of the self. I find it so, so interesting that First Nation peoples – like the Buddhists of 2,500 years ago – developed a “psychology of self” as part of their forward progressions. In Buddhist beliefs there is no concrete, independently arising, enduring SELF. It is real in a sense of mind-time, but subject to impermanence, interdependent arising, and essential emptiness. All part of illusion and delusion as we strive to experience sensory pleasure and avoid pain and suffering. These understanding – both First Nation and Buddhist – are quire complex. Mastery of them may reduce personal suffering and increase personal happiness.
This is a very brief post about love and respect for “lost loved ones” – those special people who have left their human body and mind behind.
