How to Make What’s Ordinary Extraordinary Rituals Show the Way
The word asana is often translated as “yoga posture,” but the root of the word (as) means “an easeful and steady seat for the mind and the body,” and it also means “to be.” Yoga postures, and yoga as a whole, is largely about remembering that our true nature is a responsive and mindful human being and not a reactive and mechanical human doing.
To access this true nature, the wisdom of yoga tells us to move beyond limiting habits and numbing routines and instead create conscious rituals. A ritual is about being-ness; it’s about turning our routines into sacred moments, and we do this through awareness and intention. In this way, we create that steady seat for the mind and body.
The Science
Francesca Gino published an article in Scientific America titled, “Why Rituals Work.” In it, the author tells us that rituals are more rational than they appear and that even simple ones can be very effective. Rituals have been known to reduce anxiety, help cope with stress, improve memory, balance hormones, improve immunity, reduce pain, and more. In his article “The Emerging Science of Rituals: A New Look on an Ancient Behaviour,” behavioural scientist Nick Hobson explains that rituals have been proven to bring back a feeling of control when we feel lost and that this feeling stabilizes our emotions.
With just a few simple tweaks, we can turn our everyday habits and routines into rituals. For example, choosing to unplug before a meal (shutting down laptops, cell phones, televisions, and computers) and lighting candles or expressing gratitude for our food turns a simple meal into a sacred ritual.
If you wake up to the sound of an alarm, choosing a mantra or a song that invites the feeling of love or possibility and spending a few minutes in bed listening and connecting with the words brings an element of ritual to this daily act.
One of the greatest gifts we can give someone is the gift of our attention. Attentively listening to those we share our lives with automatically brings sacredness to our relationships.
How to Add New Rituals
Yoga practice is a ritual by nature, as it is a sacred practice that requires us to pay attention. Adding any component of yoga, whether it be asana, meditation, journalling, breathing techniques, chanting, or conscious eating, to our daily life automatically adds ritual (and thus sanctity) to our life. It is useful to reflect on how our current habits and routines are impacting our perceptions and beliefs and to find ways to ritualize them to uplift our consciousness and overall well-being. Weather we realize it or not, we are, after all, creatures of habit, and although we create our habits and routines, eventually they create us. Choosing our habits wisely and learning to see the extraordinary in the ordinary ritualizes our every day, and that, we are told by the wisdom and science of yoga, is energy well spent.
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