Coming Back to Self
Daily rituals designed to ignite a gentle awakening and encourage embodied living.
Wake at 5:00 a.m. sharp and rise immediately because lingering beneath the covers is apparently a moral failure and you must stay productive. You are tired, yes, but fatigue is merely a mindset. Don’t even think about brewing a cup of coffee for the experts have determined caffeine is detrimental until exactly ninety minutes have passed. Instead, locate natural sunlight and stand in it obediently for precisely thirty minutes. Consume a breakfast containing no fewer than one hundred grams of protein. Flavor is optional. Satisfaction is irrelevant. The body has been fed; the soul was never consulted.
Is this the world we live in now? A world in which we prioritize optimization so strict that it leaves little room for serendipity. This is a recipe for dangerous monotony.
‘When shall we live, if not now?’
I want to ease into my mornings—the sun pouring through my window, kissing my eyelids good morning until its tickle coaxes me awake. Stretching my limbs as though I’m tugging my spirit back into my body. As Maya Angelou reminds us, “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.” And so I remember: I am on the receiving end of a gift—the extraordinary gift of another day, another opportunity to love life.
In the spirit of seizing our embodiment, I have composed a small collection of rituals. A chance to interrupt your daily routine. An opportunity to replace your productivity with some whimsy, romance, nourishment, and stillness. These acts of ritual can be woven into ordinary days and will encourage you to slow down, inhabit the present moment, perceive sensations, and embrace pleasure as innate wisdom.
The Anointing
Starved of touch? Honor your body by anointing yourself with oil. Warm it slowly and attentively between your palms. Inhale deeply as you slather it across your body. Massage the parts of you that pulse, bend, lift, tremble, carry, remember. Let this be a sacred act of devotion to oneself- unrushed, tender, and nurturing.
The Love Letter to Fruit
Write a love letter to your favorite fruit.
My dearly beloved, how I long to take another bite out of your plump and juicy flesh - a flavor so ephemeral, it beckons me to devour more…
Courtship with Flowers
Initiate a romance with a bouquet of flowers. Arrange them gently and elegantly, offering reverence as you snip the ends of each stem. Bask in the heady aroma of each blossom and allow their beauty to hold your attention longer than what feels “necessary”.
A Ceremony for Citrus
Peel an orange slowly. Admire its dimpled skin, the way it bends and curves beneath your fingers. Inhale the sweet perfume of the citrusy oils that erupt from the pores and linger in the air. Witness the juice as it traces your wrist. Insatiably devour the orange and feel your body perk up, enlivened by the nectar that rolls down your tongue. Listen to the instinctive sounds of lips smacking and mouths puckering in sensuous delight.
The Ancestral Hymn
Hum a hymn. Let it rise from you as though summoned by ancestral voices, allowing them to be your composer. Keep your lips sealed, breathing through your nose, and hum continuously- allow this to be intuitive and approach it with a child-like wonder. Feel the vibration soothe your nervous system as the intrinsic rhythm grounds and gently stirs you back into yourself.
In a world that asks you to hurry, harden, and perform, let these rituals be an opportunity to return to yourself.