THREE THINGS.... Three Ways to Approach Self-Care

I recently ripped this quote off the website of a really cool wisdom teacher I follow:

"Where ritual is absent, the young ones are restless or violent, there are no real elders, and the grown-ups are bewildered. The future is Dim." - Malidoma Some

I don't think we really need to look far to see the veracity of this statement. Ritual is foundational to the spiritual life. And self-care is foundational to the development of ritual. So when I speak of self-care, I cannot speak of it apart from ritual. The lives of Christians are highly secularized today and the topic of self-care can appear to be rather pedestrian and disconnected. But it is at the top of my list for those who have an itching sense of curiosity about the something more that calls to them amidst the chaos of life in this present moment. This blog entry is less about what you should do to care for yourself and more about how to reframe self-care as ritual and a necessary and vital part of one's daily spiritual life. 

1. Examine your current daily patterns.  All of them. What do you do everyday, from the time you first awaken in the morning to the time you fall asleep at night? Make a written list of all your patterns. For example: 

• Lie in bed before getting up and think about what I need to do that day.
  
• Eat breakfast.
  
• Do a Suduko puzzle every day.
  
• Go to a stretching class at the Y; then go to Starbucks with my YMCA friends.
  
• Read in the afternoon with a cup of tea.
  

On your list identify at least 3 things that you want to focus on transforming, at least mentally, into rituals of self-care. It is way easier to work with what you are already doing first than to try to add new "self-care" routines into your daily life. Let's take one thing from this list as examples for modification so you get the idea.

Current pattern: Lie in bed before rising and thinking. Transforming pattern to ritual: Do the same thing but be intentional about how you want to transform this pattern into a ritual. Are you thinking: "Today I have to do this and this and that...."? or are you saying to yourself, "I am really looking forward to...."? Create a disciplined ritual of only thinking positively about your day - beginning with: What's the one thing I'm really looking forward to experiencing this day? Spend some mental time with that one thing, really feeling gratitude for the opportunity to do that one thing. Thank God for your life and the ability you have to do this thing and the people who will be in your day connected to this item (even if that's just you!) Then get up. Repeat every day. Now you have a ritual that will feed your soul while creating new neural pathways in your brain for the better!  How we wake up every day sets the stage for how we live our lives. This is a good starting place for a self-care ritual. 

2. Eat like you live on planet earth. I read a blog from a pastor/counselor who was talking about self-care. He told of a recent interaction with one of his clients who was irate and highly anxious about something going on at work. The first question he asked was: Did you eat breakfast today? The answer was "No. I don't have time to eat breakfast!" His advice to his client was to eat breakfast and lunch at regular times every day for two weeks and then to call him back. The truth is, with the person's blood sugar all over the map and no established routine of eating real meals, all else was going to be a Band-Aide. We humans don't think or feel well, much less participate in life at our highest level when we don't follow the earth's/our body's natural rhythms for taking in and digesting food. Traditional wellness practices of India and Asia have for thousands of years suggested setting apart time to eat in the morning, something substantial, midday, very substantial, and early evening, light fare with a 12 hour fast overnight. They understood that we live best when we are not at odds with the planet's rhythms; our energy flows well when we are in the flow of the energy of the planet of which we were born and reside.  If your meals are all over the place or you skip meals, try to establish a ritual of taking in food being consciously aware of when the sun is rising, is high in the sky, and when it is setting. Most spiritual traditions, except Christianity (for the most part), have rituals around food; some are pretty elaborate. Fasting can also be a ritual, but it needs to be done safely and as part of an overall plan for creating health or as part of an established spiritual practice. Skipping breakfast or lunch (the two most important meals of the day) because your life is too busy does not check that box. 

3. Rethink the traditional meal blessing. The most important part of every meal - more important than what you are eating - is the prayer that precedes it. Skip the rote prayer and speak with gratitude to the food. Remember that it has a lifeforce ("prana" or "chi") that will become part of your living body. Speak gratitude to the farmers who planted and harvested and brought the food to your table; gratitude to those who harvested the food from the fields; those who slaughtered the animals on your behalf; gratitude for the plants and animals that gave their lives so you could live; gratitude for the businesses that sold the food and the long line of employees who had to handle your food to get it from the field or stockyard into your hands; speak gratitude to the cook who lovingly prepared the meal. Ritualizing this one prayer at all your meals will change your relationship with food, with the living beings on this planet and with the divine hand who provides it all. It will move food from a commodity to the reality of interconnection with God's creation and all its generous beings who live in an economy of reciprocity. While there is much attention placed on micro and macro nutrients there is nothing like a good, heartfelt prayer, to make those nutrients a blessing for your body. This is a foundational ritual for a healthy life.