I woke up this morning with genuinely no idea it was Friday and therefore the day I vowed to myself I will post here each week. This summer is passing by in a blur, my brain is struggling to comprehend how it can possibly be August. As it often does when the weeks rush by, my routine has gone to shit. In times of slowness, my rituals and routines thrive, I find I have the mental space to keep up with both the things I have to do as well as the things I choose to do. increase the speed of day-to-day life however, and I slowly lose the ability to maintain balance in quite the same way. I have been neglecting my rituals, which I described last week as the things that refill my cup. I can feel in my body the effects of such neglect. My jaw hasn’t been relaxed in weeks, no amount of sleep feels like enough and I’ve been moving through my days in a daze that means looking back over the past few weeks, I’m struggling to remember what happened when. I’ve also not been staying at home all that much, between taking trips and house sitting, the last few days have been the longest I’ve occupied my own space in around a month. No wonder I’m feeling a little lost in myself. And so being back at the flat for the past few days and the impending return to my normal schedule next week is good for my soul. I have discovered I’m the kind of person that needs rhythms in their lives, as I’m sure most of us do. That’s where this week‘s topic of discussion, the power of ritual, comes in.

Now I might have lost you for a second there amidst images of sacrifice to beating of drums or whatever else this idea of ritual may have brought to mind. Each to their own, but this is not what ritual means to me. Personally it means a routine of sorts, a regular set of actions that are undertaken with an intention and a focus on presence. It’s like a habit but better. For me, doing these things that bring me joy, peace, gratitude and presence, and calling them rituals infuses them with a sense of magic, of connection to something deeper.

What many may call a morning routine, to me is my morning ritual. It is a flow I have committed to dropping into to welcome each new day as intentionally and as grounded as possible. I didn’t realise quite how much this flow impacted my life as a whole until I lost it for awhile. I had belittled its importance in my mind thus my motivation to dedicate myself to it waned once my life began gaining momentum over the past few months. little did I know it was what was fuelling the relationship I have been building with myself, that it made up the foundations everything else was built upon. That choice to stop spending the first half hour of my day in ritual caused a knock on effect to everything else that brings joy to my daily life. I know that sounds dramatic but I’m being honest. Because once you turn your back on one thing, turning your back on other things becomes a lot easier. It builds momentum in the opposite direction. In turning away from my rituals I was also turning my back on my presence, my intention, my connection to myself. I stopped choosing to spend quality time with myself, stopped doing a lot of the things I love because my momentum was chasing me in the opposite direction and I couldn’t find the energy or willpower I needed to turn myself back around. That is, Until the tension in my body became too uncomfortable, until I got fed up with waking up feeling worse than I did before I went to sleep, until I realised how much I was leaving behind in the pursuit of… What? where was I heading with all this momentum? I don’t really know. Away from myself, away from my truth, my balance, my most authentic way of living, I guess.

And so, these last few days, I’ve been slowly turning back around I’ve been stepping back towards the novel sense of equilibrium I discovered over the past year and a half spent growing into myself. This morning I returned to my ritual. I left my phone untouched for as long as possible. I cracked open my blinds and open my windows as wide as I could. I boiled the kettle and made a pot of delicious @weareformless tea in my new teapot. I meditated to my favourite morning meditation by @jasonmcgrice and infused my morning with a sense of gratitude and intention. I journalled immediately afterwards as the Sun danced across my walls and the sound of the city awakening drifted through my open windows. I returned to a place of quiet, slow beginnings for the first time in months and it felt good. It still feels good. I reflected in my journal that I felt more awake and peaceful than I had for awhile. I felt more clarity, more rooted in myself and my gratitude for the life I get to live and my intentions for the day than I have in weeks, months even.

so, what I mean by all of this rambling is this. Make space in your life for ritual. Adorn your day in it. Find a way to rise into the day instead of dragging yourself into it. what awakens your energy and grounds you into the fact that each day you get to live is a blessing that is yours and yours alone? We all have to do lists and obligations, things we have to do, places we have to go and roles we have to fill.

How will you infuse magic into the spaces in between?

if you want to hear more about my journey towards a more authentic existence, follow me on instagram @the.authenticity.project and on medium . see my photography work on instagram @s.ophiea.lice and connect with me on linkedin.

big love to you all x