Don't Overthink It - Anne Bogel Page 0,46

habitually and constantly, almost religiously. Ritual is something we do with a higher purpose in mind.

How we think about things changes the way we experience them. This is true for rituals—we don’t need a ceremony or special occasion to experience their power and pleasure. Rituals can be done regularly, built around small things. That morning coffee is habitual (routine), but it can also be made meaningful (ritual)—and I’m not just talking about the caffeine.

It doesn’t have to be difficult to elevate a routine so it becomes a ritual. You could regularly call your sister on weekend mornings. Or you could call her on purpose, setting early Saturday aside as a time to curl up in your favorite chair, phone in hand, and share not only what’s on your mind that morning but also the highlights of the week gone by, your hopes for the week to come, and your concerns about your parents, your kids, your job. One is routine; the other is ritual.

You might routinely order pizza on Friday nights because you’re exhausted after a hard week and can’t handle thinking about dinner. Or Friday pizza night could be a ritual. When the workweek is over, you welcome the weekend by cranking up some music, uncorking a bottle of wine, lovingly rolling out the dough, and then tossing a salad while the pizza bakes. Soon you’re ready to sit down and enjoy your homemade meal, as is your Friday-night custom. You could also lovingly order Domino’s; it’s something we’ve often done at my house with a fervent spirit of gratitude. It’s not the pizza that makes it a ritual, it’s the attitude behind it.

Elevating something to ritual status doesn’t require much; it’s all in the way you approach it. When my friend left sunny Arizona for snowy Utah, her family struggled to adjust to the new-to-them winter climate. So they decided that every year, they’d take a trip to someplace warm. And they did one more significant thing. To remind everyone of the purpose behind the trip, they gave it a name: the Winter Escape Trip. This simple act made the trip feel more purposeful and important. The name reminded everyone why they were going, why they needed it, what it meant to them, and what it said about who they are as a family. The name changed the way they thought about the trip—and about themselves.

While consistency is key, the form the ritual takes may vary. Your rituals may change with the seasons, whether that’s the season of the year or the season of life. An early morning run by the water may be torture in winter’s cold but essential in July’s heat. As the seasons change, a restorative afternoon cup of tea could become a restorative afternoon cup of iced-something. We can rely on the ritual while adapting the particulars as needed.

The Power of Ritual

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to ritual. The same ritual that serves your friend well may be the last thing you’re interested in doing, and that’s fine. The power of ritual is not in the morning coffee or the Friday pizza or the four “lucky” taps a batter gives home plate before the pitch but in the ritual itself. Generally speaking, it matters little what the ritual is. A ritual—any ritual—establishes a certain kind of mindset; perhaps this is why rituals benefit even those who claim they’re not important. When a routine works for us, we don’t have to pay attention to it, but a ritual calls us to fully participate in what we’re doing—even if it’s as simple as savoring a cup of tea. The specific action doesn’t matter, but its rhythm, regularity, and meaning do. We enter into our life purposefully when we do it with ritual, meeting each experience fresh but also with a rhythm that supports us.

Rituals Help Us Practice Mindfulness

While we can mindlessly follow a routine, we cannot do the same with a ritual. A ritual unites the rhythm of routine with focused attention—a powerful combination for avoiding overthinking. It’s hard to overthink when we are focused on the moment. The ritual also forces us to slow down—and when we deliberately slow our bodies, we slow our minds as well.

What we’re thinking about during our ritual isn’t important. What’s important is all the things we’re not thinking about. Our minds are focused on what’s right in front of us. Will we wander off the path as the day goes on? Sure we will. But we’ll wander a lot less