A self-care ritual is a personal practice that is done on a regular basis to take care of oneself.
The practice of a self-care ritual holds a very empowering message: My well-being matters. The purpose of any self-care ritual is to allow you to tune into your inner world and deepen your own compassion for yourself.
You matter.
Self-care rituals are less about the products but more about making time for yourself. The products are only tools to assist you. Your ritual can be anything from drinking tea and reading a book in the morning, to standing up after every hour of sitting down. These practices are done on a consistent basis (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually) to create a healthier, intentional, and grateful version of you. The frequency of any self-care ritual would depend on you.
By continuously practicing these self-care rituals, you develop a deeper sense of self-awareness to assess if your current actions match your goals. This attunement to your inner self allows you to consciously make a shift in your actions if there is a misalignment between your actions and goals. You increase your ability to practice actualization. You are brought closer to executing your vision- how you want to live your life, who you want to be, how you want to feel, and what you want to do.
WHAT ISN’T A SELF-CARE RITUAL?
A self-care ritual is beyond doing what is good for your body and mind. You can eat a salad but if you do not truly enjoy it then it isn’t a self-care ritual. The common denominator of any self-care practice is that you enjoy what you are doing.
Any self-care ritual should be an intentional pursuit of overall wellness that balances every aspect of you mentally, physically, spiritually and professionally.
A self-care ritual should leave you feeling energized and fulfilled with a sense of gratification. If you feel any other way during or after your self-care ritual then your ritual requires some tweaking. This is the reason why setting the intention prior to doing any ritual is so crucial.
WHY ARE SELF-CARE RITUALS IMPORTANT?
Self-care rituals are important because they help you recharge your mental and emotional batteries and improve your general well-being. It's also a chance for you to take care of yourself and give yourself the respect you deserve.
Your self-care ritual should help you feel grounded, calm, and connected with yourself. They can also improve our mood, increase our energy levels, and lengthen our life expectancy.
The benefits of self-care rituals are endless because they provide you with love, compassion, awareness, and connection with yourself.
You become attuned with your inner self and enabled to make the life changes you need in order to exercise your life vision.
STEP 1: FIND WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL CENTERED
Feeling centered means feeling balanced and at peace. It is often referred to the equilibrium state of feeling balanced spiritually and emotionally.
Being centered allows you to understand your emotional state and cope with situations of adversity.
Everyone feels centered in different ways. You need to ask yourself, what brings you peace and brainstorm a bunch of different daily activities that you do.
Think about what takes you to your “happy place”.
STEP 2: INCORPORATE IT INTO YOUR EVERYDAY ROUTINE
In a religious context, rituals are ceremonial acts often performed in a community-setting. In a self-care context, people create rituals for improving their well-being in a personal-setting.
Although humans have been performing rituals for over 70,000 years, people in today’s society do not necessarily create space for habits that nourish them. This is why it is important to incorporate your self-care rituals in your everyday routine.
Now that you have a list of activities that help you feel centered, the next step is to find ways to incorporate these potential activities into your daily routine.
STEP 3: SET YOUR GOALS
The goals for when and how often you want to practice your self-care rituals is only a component for this next step.
It is important to know exactly what you want to do for self care and when you want to do it. For example, one goal you might have is to take a bath every Friday evening while doing zero work. So, you would work on creating your own self care routine and deciding what it will look like for you.
You can also set a specific time of day where you make yourself do something that is just for yourself, such as watching your favourite TV show or reading a book.
The second component of this next step is to set your life goals. In order to be the best version of yourself, look at what goals you want to set for your life. What aspects of your life do you want to achieve these goals in? In your career? In your personal relationships? In your business? In your health?
Overtime, as you give yourself more self-care, you become more mindful of how you are currently living your life. Then you empower yourself with the ability to make a choice to shift your actions if you are not acting towards your life goals. Your actions will become more aligned with your life vision and how you want to live your life.
STEP 4: SET YOUR INTENTIONS
Before every self-care ritual, it is important to set out your intentions of how you want to feel afterwards. Intentions are reminders, which through repetition will reprogram your subconscious mind and turn these activities into habits.
It helps to write down your intentions so you can read them over again for each ritual.
If you need some samples, we have a list of positive cognitions for you to use. The source is from Shapiro, F. (2001). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures (2nd edition). New York: Guilford Press.
Now that you know the steps of setting your self-care rituals, here are a few tips to keep in mind.
TIP 1: KEEP IT SIMPLE
So often, a mindset shift can have a crucial impact on the results of any activity. Shifting the thought of your self-care routine as another thing on your plate to it being a necessary part of your day, can drastically affect the effectiveness of your self-care ritual. You can go from feeling guilty about it to feeling empowered and happy that you made time for yourself.
Focus on how you feel during your practice and let it dictate your steps moving forward.
Remember that your ritual doesn’t need to be long or costly. The whole purpose is so that you feel recharged, so make it as simple as possible to fit into your daily routine.
TIP 2: DON’T DO THINGS YOU HATE
What is the point of doing something if you truly do not enjoy it?
It is more likely that you will try to skip the activity and subconsciously try to avoid doing it by coming up with an excuse.
More importantly, when you allow yourself to do something you don’t like especially for your self-care ritual, you are subconsciously telling yourself that “you are not good enough” to do something you enjoy. Other negative cognitions that you may be telling include “I am not worthy,” or “I am not in control.”
All these negative cognitions are negative self-talk on a deeper subconscious level. They do the exact opposite of what self-care is supposed to do, which is to nourish yourself.
When you do things you love, you should feel a sense of gratification or fulfillment instead of the feeling of an obligation or burden. For this simple reason, you should never do things you don’t like as a part of your self-care ritual.
TIP 3: LEVERAGE TOOLS AND PRODUCTS
Although your self-care rituals are completely dependent on what works for you, sometimes you may need to leverage some tools or products to help you.
You should not feel guilty about investing in some of the apps, journals or ready-made curated products to help you set your self-care ritual. Remember that this is an investment to yourself. There is no price that is too high to pay for your well-being.
Most importantly, you are worth it.