A Daily Ritual That's Helped Me Heal
To reflect on 2019, I took stock of what I’d been through by combing my journal entries from the year and looking through the big groups of photos on my phone. I didn’t really know what I was looking for - I mostly just wanted to reflect on where I’d been, maybe what I’d accomplished. Put some sort of a perspective casing around a year of challenge and growth for me.
Something that ended up standing out to me was a correlation between my happier, more fulfilled months and a writing exercise that I took up in the later half of the year. It was inspired by a mix of positive psychology, spiritual mysticism, and a recommendation from my therapist.
Every morning, I started my day with a ritual of sorts. I woke up, played my daily Mend app lesson (a topic for a whole other blog post!), meditated for five minutes using Insight Timer, stretched, and pulled out my journal to reflect on three things:
What I’m grateful for
What I’m manifesting
What I’m releasing
If you read this blog, you’re already familiar with my penchant for gratitude. A regular gratitude practice is the single most expert-recommended trick for short and long-term happiness, and it just so happens to be one of the easiest. Examples of what I was grateful for last year include:
Sunshine and San Francisco’s Indians summers
Spending a whole weekend just me and my mom
Taking up dancing again
My cozy, happy little apartment
A good night’s sleep
Manifesting isn’t necessarily new to Blue Sky Mind either, as I’ve done monthly intention setting for a while now. There’s a ton of research to support that writing down your goals, whether personal, professional, or internal, helps you to accomplish them. Examples of what I manifested last year include:
Openness to new possibilities
Excitement for change (rather than anxiety)
Peace and contentment in my life
Love for myself
Selflessness and grace
A self that I can be proud of
But releasing is something entirely new to me, and something that now six months of consistent therapy has helped me realize I need to practice regularly. I have a tendency to be pretty hard on myself, sometimes holding myself to an impossibly high standard or taking on the emotions of those who I am not responsible for. Examples of my releasing practice from last year include:
Guilt about not being the perfect sister/daughter/granddaughter
Guilt about being happy while others are struggling
Shame for being so concerned with my appearance
Shame for mistakes I’ve made in my past
I started doing this in September of 2019, and it, along with a number of other factors, seem to contribute to an upward trend in my mood and positive outcomes in my life.
Maybe it was hitting the three month mark post-breakup to which I owe the bigger correlation. Maybe it was further bonding with my team at work, cementing in my daily life a deep system of laughter and support. A lot happened for me in September, so it’s hard to isolate down to just one factor.
I know that a writing exercise alone can’t repair a broken life. But what it can do is give you a daily ritual upon which to build gratitude, intention and peace. In other, a structured format for realizing what you have, where you want to go, and how this present moment is okay just as it is.
Do you have any daily rituals that help build your foundation of peace? Share with this community in the comments!
Up next: Finding a Good Therapist