Month: May 2020

This will be the last in my small series on daily rituals. Here I explore the feelings I have about how daily rituals can help in coping with the situation that continues to dominate our lives – lockdown during Coronavirus and share a few more of the rituals I follow.

Pause for a moment and consider your routines. We all have routines we follow, many on a daily basis. Notice I have used the word routine. The difference between a routine and a ritual is the feeling behind the action.

Routines are often things we feel we have to do (like brushing our teeth, making the bed). Routines may seem dull and boring, but in my own experience I have found routines to be soothing and comforting as I believe they help ground me and keep me experiencing what’s happening in each moment. They help keep me mindful and self aware.

For me, I am convinced that my sub-conscious mind becomes steady and safe through repetitive motions and expected outcomes. I have been taking advantage of this time to expand on my daily routines to fill my days with more creative and joyous pursuits that make me feel good. These then become my daily rituals … routines for joy! They make me feel good  because I believe my habits create my mood and my mood is a filter through which I experience life. So therefore to experience life as joy, I am responsible, it is up to me to make my life work for me and I do this by being in control of my mood. I have been adding daily rituals to my daily life because I choose to live with joy. Finding inner happiness or joy is what we all strive for. For me I find this blissful state by ‘filling my cup’ with rituals that help keep me free from anxiety.

I am living through a beautiful, relaxing time during lockdown and I am convinced this is because I have carefully chosen daily rituals to keep me balanced and feeling grateful for being alive.

Here are my daily rituals:

1. Creative Writing. You can read about this : here
2. Practising Yoga. You can read about this : here
3. Meditation. I practice meditation to go within, to still my mind and to connect with my inner flame, the real me, the I AM.
4. Walking. It goes without saying the many benefits there are in walking but I am enhancing the wellbeing of my daily walk by taking my time to slow down and appreciate every step I take. I use all my senses to take in the environment and give thanks for nature.
5. Daily musing on Bliss. It has been wholly healing to mediate on the word bliss and what it means for me. Bliss is where I wish to reside. I have been sharing a few words about how I feel about Bliss and combining my thought for the day with a photograph I take on my daily walk. I post my photograph alongside my words on Instagram. It will be something beautiful I can look back on when lockdown ends and will remind me of the wonderful walks I have enjoyed.
6. Singing. The wellbeing benefits of singing are well documented and well known. I have found HUGE pleasure in singing for Gareth Malone since day one when he started his Great British Home Chorus
7. Being grateful. Every day I give thanks for existing.

 

I hope anyone who has read this far (and thank you if you have) finds inspiration to consider their daily routines and  turn them into beautiful, life enhancing daily rituals.

Here’s a link to a wellbeing site where you can read more about the benefits of creating daily rituals. I hope you find it useful

 

LIHazleton.
Follow me on Twitter where I connect with other writers and all things writing. Follow me on Instagram if you love nature, dogs and other animals.

 

 

In the second in this series of my musings about daily rituals (see here for my first posting on one of my daily rituals – writing) I will be exploring what yoga means for me and why I have a daily practice.

I am hopeful that everyone is coping well (or as best they can) during lockdown for Coronavirus and I trust that everyone will make careful personal choices as to how they approach life as lockdown shifts to the next phase (whatever that may be).

I imagine many people are discovering that daily rituals feed and maintain wellbeing. In sharing my daily rituals, I hope I might inspire other people to think about building a structure to their day and be careful in choosing daily rituals that keep spirits high and positivity flowing, so they might benefit from this time of enforced social isolation. There are many resources available to help people during this time and to tap into creativity and wellbeing activities could be hugely rewarding and who knows – lead on to bigger and better things once this is all over. One of my goals is to be able to look back to this time and feel I spent my time wisely and it was a wholly positive experience for me.

Yoga as a daily ritual. 

Those who know me well, know that for the last ten + years , I have been practicing yoga and for the last five years, have developed a daily practice.

Yoga is one of my daily rituals.

But what do I mean by yoga? Is it exercise? Is it about improving posture? Is it about gaining flexibility? Is it stilling the mind? Is it breath practice? Is it relaxation? Is it being about being mindful? Is it a meditation?

For me, it’s all of those things and so much more.

Yoga was intended to be an entire lifestyle, a way of living, a philosophy for life. When I first began to learn about yoga, it was a surprise for me to learn that the ‘asanas’ (the yoga poses we practice on the mat) were not even part of what the originator intended. How many people appreciate that?

The birth of yoga originally comes from the Vedas (ancient Hindu scriptures). This dates back between 4,000 to 5,000 years and the knowledge was passed down from teacher to student in the way of verses and poems. It wasn’t until the second century B.C. that a sage named Patanjali outlined what is known today as the Eight Limbs of Yoga (or Raja Yoga).

I have chosen to follow Raja Yoga as it provides a framework and has as its essence the union of ourselves — our mind, body, soul, spirit, and emotions. The word ‘yoga’ comes from the Sanskrit word yuj, which can be translated into ‘yoking’ or ‘union’. Raja Yoga is far more than a form of exercise and my daily ritual of rolling out my yoga mat to practice asanas has become a metaphore for the way I chose to live my life – what I learn and practice on the mat, I take with me off the mat and into the rest of my life.

To discover more about Raja yoga, this might be a useful place to start: The eight limbs of yoga.

 

LIHazleton.
Follow me on Twitter where I connect with other writers and all things writing. Follow me on Instagram if you love nature, dogs and other animals.