The final key, #10, is Establish Empowering Rituals. If you’re into sports, like I am, you know how the greatest athletes have rituals that put them into a state of peak performance so they can execute at their absolute best. Or, if you’re into spirituality, like I am, chances are you’ve read all the great spiritual teachers and you know what special practices they adopt to get into that same zone. I can assure you, the zone for peak physical performance is the same zone for properly practiced prayer and meditation. But more on that another day! When it comes to self-mastery, establishing rituals to perform can be just the key you need to reach the next step in your journey. Daily practice is an absolute requirement. By making it a habit, you re-wire your brain to operate at greater and greater levels of refinement. That is what rituals are for. We engage in spiritual ceremonies, like Deborah King Live on Facebook that we engage in every other Tuesday at 2 pacific, in order to create a safe place to work through our most complicated feelings, so we won’t have to carry those feelings around with us forever.
I absolutely love what Joseph Campbell had to say about all of this: “A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of your psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you at your deepest level.” People have traditionally turned to activities like my Facebook Live, being in community and sharing through stories and prayer and song, to help us on our forever journey toward self mastery, to help us live in the daily paradox of trauma mixed with joy.