Wellbeing

Spirituality: Use rituals to heal your emotions

With our increasingly secularised society, now is the time to bring meaning back into your life says ceremony-lover Rose Rouse

With our increasingly secularised society, now is the time to bring meaning back into your life says ceremony-lover Rose Rouse
Have you noticed your friends taking ‘rituals’ into their own hands and imaginations? Defined as a ceremonial act or a detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed, rituals are everywhere. Whether it is retaking their vows, taking the service for the funeral of their stepfather, celebrating their 60th birthday with their son’s band playing in the living room, then a special edition of desert island discs: or simply daily meditation, yoga and dance, my friends and I seem to be creating rituals for ourselves all of the time.

In a society that has become increasingly secularised, we need to re-invent religious or traditional rituals or rites of passage to ensure that we mark events, particularly landmark ones like birth, naming, menstruation, pledging a committed love to each other, special birthdays and dying. These societal rituals make us feel witnessed and honoured as human beings, they are also important ways of enabling transition. Daily rituals help structure the day in a significant fashion, and help transition in a different way, for instance, from sleep to a waking, alert state.

Making a mark

“There’s a difference between conscious and unconscious ritual,” says Nick Clements, author of The New Ages of Men (newagesofmen.com) which looks at healthy and unhealthy rites of passage for boys and men. “Teenagers driving too fast whilst drunk or on drugs is an unhealthy type of ritual, as are gang wars where young men are not being initiated by older men in a way that values and celebrates them. Vision quests would be one healthy way to initiate young men into manhood.”

Rituals can be something we do every day. At its most basic, it can be the cup of Earl Grey in the morning. “Daily rituals define the boundary between the family and the outside world,” say Evan Imber-Black and Janine Roberts in their book Rituals for Our Times (£32, Jason Aronson). At their best rituals can take us into a sacred, transformational zone. “Not only are people making new rituals for birth, adulthood, marriage and death, they are also bringing the sacred into everyday life by creating rituals, however small, to help personal issues release and change,” writes Caroline Borne, a teacher of ritual, in a piece called Rituals for Our Lives (greenspirit.org.uk)

“Rituals can take us into a sacred, transformational zone”

Rituals:how to create your own

Ceremony and rites of passage all come from the same place, says rituals expert and author Nick Clements. These are:

Dissonance An awareness that something needs to change.
Intent Identifying/naming what needs to change.
Cleanse Cleanse yourself, the circumstance, the situation, and in so doing you may identify other things which need to change, or which alter the original intent. Cleansing can be either literally – washing and renewing, or metaphorically by meditating, focusing the intent, walking in nature, becoming calm and considered. Having cleansed and prepared for change, you need to then actually bring it about.
Gathering Symbolically you gather the change and what you need in order to facilitate it, with the placement of artefacts, burning of candles, actions or creative processes for example.
The ritual Which enables you to change symbolically and/or actually.
Discipline Ideally you do the ritual every day, not just on weekends or at times which are convenient to you. By doing so, you bring about permanent change in your life.

How do you do yours?

Personally, I have a shrine in the fireplace of my bedroom which reflects me at my most eclectic – there is a red rose from the garden, a prayer, photos of me, one pregnant, one partying, sea shells from India and Dorset, a 1920s tiara, a tin my grandfather used to have and more – every morning, I shake like a banshee in front of it for at least five minutes. To get the energy flowing through my entire body, and to shake off any negativity from the day before.
These days, I also say; “I love you” as images of my friends and family pass gently through my mind’s eye. My intention is to greet the day with love. Then, I sit and breathe for another five minutes. Perhaps repeating a word like “open”. Finally, I have a hot bath for another ten minutes where I really relish the stillness or surrender to something that is moving in me. All of that is only 20 minutes and I find it frames the day in a way that I get to be present with myself. So at least I know where I am, whether it be sad or joyful.

Another friend of mine Matt, says: “For me, there is something incredibly powerful in making the mundane sacred. For me it has been writing, sitting, and it’s definitely dancing now. I also have a ritual in the mornings which is six stretches in the same order. Even when I’m rushed, it offers space for me at the start of the day. Other days, I have a sense of the practice as an offering, and sometimes, I’m cracked open by it, so that I am touched by all the pain, grief, anger, joy and hope in my life.”

3 great rituals to try

New Year Ritual

New Year’s Eve is a great time to celebrate the end of the old and the beginning of the new, and use a ritual to do it. At 11.30pm gather your friends (whether at a party or intimate group) in a circle, give them all a tea light, and simply take turns in saying what you want to say goodbye to, and what you want to say hello to in 2012. This works best if you all do it in the most simple and honest way possible. When one person has finished speaking, they simply walk in silence to the centre of the room and light their candle and place it on the waiting huge plate or tray. Gradually, it turns into a central altar space. At the end of the sharing, stay in quiet as midnight is acknowledged and then walk round and give each other hugs for the New Year. This ritual really makes you feel that you have done something meaningful as a group, and you have.

Personal Ritual

You can create your own altar in your bedroom or garden or living room. This altar can have symbols of everything that is important in your life – from photos of your children, your partner, yourself turning a particular age, a stone from the beach you love, a love poem, to a feather you collected on a fantastic walk. Use your shrine to help manifest what you really long for in your life. For instance, if you want a new man to come along – put items including descriptions of his qualities, a poem, an object that symbolises love etc – and have a little ceremony where you sit for five minutes in silence and really allow yourself to welcome this man in, and your own opening to it. Repeat every two weeks. You can do this with money, career, a child etc.

Spring or Summer RitualThis is to celebrate spring or summer. Meet up with a special group of women friends. It could be your book club or your women’s group. Ask everyone to bring a token – some of their own words, something from nature, a fertility symbol, etc to signify what would like to focus on from relationships to financial security. Form a circle, hold hands for a few minutes with your eyes closed, one of you talk about the purpose of this ritual and format, then invite everyone to talk about what they have brought along and then place one by one in the middle of the circle. This can be so moving for everyone; just listening to what their friends really yearn for. Do this all in silence and end with a few minutes where you gaze at one another and really take each other in and appreciate what has just happened.