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"You have to select your thoughts the way you select your clothes."
~ From the movie Eat Pray Love
This Week's Rituals for Love
By Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway,
author of
Rituals for Love and Romance
Rituals help us connect to the sacred and extraordinary and they also help us to bring divine energy into our daily lives. They allow our souls to immerse in a spiritual experience and they empower our subconscious minds to manifest a new reality.
We all partake in rituals in daily life—waking at a certain time, making coffee, going to work, checking e-mail, etc. These are the familiar moments that allow us to stay connected to the flow of life and keep our lives organized.
Then there are rituals that carry specific meanings and symbolize life passages—baby blessings, birthday parties, weddings, funerals, golden anniversaries and retirement celebrations. These are the rituals we call life events or rites of passage, the ones that mark the new beginnings and changing seasons. Such rituals are meant to celebrate and mark a certain purpose, meaning and direction.
There are also rituals and ceremonies that allow us to combine the mundane—actions toward something we truly want in life—with the highly spiritual. They are the kind of rituals that give us a chance to enact an experience and conjure feelings that will help us heal as well as manifest our goals.
The
rituals offered in this ebook
are designed to move you through experiences that can help send signals to the psyche in a positive way, and in doing so enable you to draw your dreams closer.
Here are a few rituals to get you started on this path this month.
Say a Little Prayer
Begin with a prayer to be filled with Divine Presence and possibility—positive, hopeful thoughts and ideas. Create a new intention that if you slip into negative self-talk you will switch your focus. Try a special mantra or affirmation that can redirect your energy. Some possibilities to get you started:
I am one with God.
I am a good person. Light fills my being.
I radiate good energy and thoughts.
Open Your Heart
We may say we want love, success, and happiness, but we don't always back up our dreams with self-honoring actions. Without self-love, we have no foundation to uphold or contain love, self-esteem, and true potential. Someone can love you with more heart than you ever imagined, but where will it go if you have no internal mechanism for recognizing pure love? The universe can shower you with opportunities, but you will miss the best plums on the tree because you won't think you deserve to reach for them.
Take 10 to 20 minutes every morning to meditate to a piece of music that feels heart-opening to you. One that I like is this moving and soul-stirring chant, "Open My Heart," by Ana Hernandez and Ruth Cunningham, from their CD
HARC: Inside Chants.
Put Healthy Food into Your Body
We all know by now that certain foods, chemicals, and substances like alcohol can work against us in all areas of life. It is time to truly acknowledge that your body is your temple and treat it as sacred. If you are having any kind of imbalance or dis-ease—depression, illness, self-hating blues—see if you can find an external "chemical" cause for it. Start with what you are eating. Then look at what you are drinking, as well as chemicals you are taking in. For example, sugar, wheat, yeast, processed foods, certain carbs, and alcohol can all add together to make an I-Don't-Feel-Great stew and a grumpy you.
There are many things we can do to lighten up and alleviate the cause and effect of the things that may make us cranky, ill, and feeling hopeless—which can all add to lack of self-love and self-esteem. Experiment with eliminating different potential trigger substances from your life. Delete things from your general diet that cause you to turn on yourself. Make a choice to find out what foods empower your well-being—perhaps more fruits and veggies, or your body might need more lean meat to keep your head clear—and add in the things that help you feel great.
Copyright © 2009 – 2010 by Laurie Sue Brockway. All rights reserved.
What rituals do you have for self-love?
Thanks for sharing with the rest of us!
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