4 Reasons To Fiercely Protect Your Rituals

There's my laptop, my kindle, my Mac desktop, my iphone, my Facebook, my Twitter, my Instagram, my Pinterest, and dozens of podcasts I love. Not to mention my Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon. All these things are great and helpful.
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There's my laptop, my kindle, my Mac desktop, my iphone, my Facebook, my Twitter, my Instagram, my Pinterest, and dozens of podcasts I love. Not to mention my Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon. All these things are great and helpful.

But because I'm engaging with them everyday hour upon hour, they make my brain tired in this sneaky unnoticeable way. Plus, I'm an introvert whose highly sensitive, who wears onesies, and often nicknamed "grandma." So all this stimulation is its own kind of slow death.

The first time I witnessed a Chinese tea ceremony, I felt so rooted. The little glass teapots glistened in the candlelight. The wet leaves unfurled and opened in the water, creating a liquid amber that warmed every bone in my body. You know that feeling of finding home? That's what experiencing the tea ceremony was like.

These mornings, you can find me taking the time to find some beautiful leaves to put into my bronze-glazed artisan-made pot before I start my day, imagining what will unfold just like my tea leaves.

This little ritual keeps me sane. Keeps me afloat. Keeps me breathing.

I believe it's these small things in life that make it so magical.

But lest we be fooled by "small"! (Yes, I get to use the word lest, such a fun word)."Small" is still powerful.

Today, I want to share four big reasons to fiercely protect at least 5 minutes of space and time for you; your pure joy and pleasure. Everyday. Period. No excuses.

Note: I use the word protect, because your inner critic, ego, and this obsessively productive society at large will do everything in its power to try to take your ritual away from you.

Big Reason #1: Owning your attention + energy = power

If everyone has the same amount of time in a day, including Oprah Winfrey, your favorite artist / designer / entrepreneur / business leader, the difference becomes a matter of attention and energy. Carving out at least 5 minutes of joy and pleasure everyday is taking your power back. It's taking your energy and attention off screens and technolgy, and into something that gives you energy and that focuses your attention because you feel sheer joy while doing it. It's your power. And you want to tap into it as many times as you can, especially first thing in the morning.

Big Reason #2: You don't know when you are going to die

I know, I'm a hardhitter. Sorry, but I can't help it. It's the truth. In working with a recent client, we had this big aha: today is life. Tomorrow is not necessarily life. She realized she was spending her day answering emails for job interviews she didn't want to answer for some future result she wasn't quite sure about. Naturally, we focused on joy and pleasure and now she's doing empowering freelance work while exploring a passion side project. We focused on her day. On her today. And it made all the difference.

Big Reason #3: Your mind is moving faster than ever

If you're high achieving and constantly comparing yourself to others, you may think you're not moving fast enough. But you are in fact moving very fast. We all are. Even if we're not moving physically fast, our minds are at lightening speed as we get online and click around from social media site to social media site, multitask, and answer a bunch of emails. You know what I'm talking about. Taking at least 5 minutes is about slowing the fuck down.

Big Reason #4: Comparison, dissatisfaction, and not enoughness

When I'm consuming a lot of content and information, I somehow feel bad about myself. Do you notice this pattern, too? Unless the content is truly thoughtful and helpful, the constant stimulation adds to my sense of not enoughness. The more I protect my time and space for tea ritual and other nourishing activities, the more I remember I am in fact enough and I'm doing great. That way when I do get on the interwebs, I'm rooted. I'm not thrown off center because my frenemy published the book I always dreamed of writing.

So there you have it, 4 really big reasons to protect your small daily ritual. Tea. So simple. So small. So powerful.

What's your small, simple, yet powerful act of pure joy and pleasure? Can you put away your ego's babble and commit to it?

Leave a comment below or in this post.

xo

Maria

P.S. I've started a series of articles on rituals called the Magical Effects of Morning and Evening Rituals (MEMER). I'm so excited to share this with you! I have written or will soon be writing wisdom articles that focus on helping you develop morning and evening rituals (MERs) that you love, including:

Because this matters, a lot. Now, more than ever.

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