A powerful Ritual | bac massage therapy

A powerful ritual

I have spent a lot of time recently chatting with clients about their stress level & wellbeing.
 
Pretty consistently we talk about how out of control stress is right now, and how they just don’t know what to do about it.
 
Since the stressors aren’t going away anytime soon, it’s time to create a healing ritual of mindfulness, meditation and gratitude to allow you to feel calm and to interrupt the chronic stress cycle.
 
Often, I hear that people don’t find breathing exercises helpful in moments of stress crisis (whenever the fight or flight part of your nervous system is triggered for whatever reason).
 
But I think that all it takes is creating a ritual around your breathing exercise and consistent practice to condition your mind and body to relax and breathing to calm.
 
Eventually your ritual will be successful at breaking the stress cycle in those critical moments of stress & crisis.
 
Rituals allow you to quickly and more easily shift and engage in a specific mindset. 
 
Basically you are giving your brain the cues that tell it what is coming so it can say “oh, we like the serenity we feel after this, let’s get right to that”.

Think about when you get on the massage table for your appointment, once you are settled you probably have a big sigh exhale and immediately start to let go and relax. Same exact thing.
 
So if your goal is to calm and sooth your nervous system, having a ritual around your breathing exercise can help you more quickly achieve that serenity and calm.
 
Creating Your Own Ritual
 
Your ritual should have a couple of key components when your goal is reducing your stress response. Basically the more cues you can give your brain the better, but keep it simple enough that you don’t get bogged down in the process and end up more stressed or frustrated than when you started.

1. Smell – an essential oil like lavender or frankincense or a stress relief rollerball and rub some on the palm of your hands, along your collar bones, and under your jaw; light your favourite candle or burn your favourite incense.
2. Sound – total quiet (absence of distracting sounds, even a fan); soothing nature sounds; calm classical music (check out Ludovico Einaudi, his seven days walking collection is amazing!); Tibetan singing bowl; whatever calms you. I tend to gravitate to total quiet because my house is generally full of noise, so quiet is peaceful and calming for me.
3. Breathing – any breathing exercise that works towards slow, deep breaths will interrupt the cycle of stress hormones (breathing exercises to try); choose whatever works for you, I love moon piercing breath, especially when I preform my ritual right before bed, but in the morning you might want an energizing breath like sun piercing breath.
4. Gratitude – think of 3 things you are grateful for or 3 good, joyful, wonderful things that happened that day (even if all you can think of is you drank a full cup of tea hot, you showered, and everyone is now asleep in bed); some days this is the hardest part, we tend to get bogged down by the negative or what didn't go well, but adding gratitude to your ritual helps to flip your mindset and put you in a more positive, hopeful place helping to reduce your feelings of stressed and overwhelmed.

 
Some other things that can add power to your ritual ... crystals like amethyst (has a calming vibration that is wonderful in times of anxiety and stress) or rose quartz (has a strong vibration of unconditional love, joy, warmth and connection to the heart); a mala to mark of your breaths; a mantra, my favourite one recently is Shima (pronounced she-ma) which means Love; a dedicated space to practice; aura spray (I love these from Alypsis); a mediation cushion (comfort is key).
 
What is the best time of day to practice?
 
Well this depends entirely on you.
 
If your quiet moment is when the kids are down for a nap, do it then.
 
When your stress is waking you up during the night, try preforming your ritual just prior to bed.
 
Alternately, you could try first thing in the morning for a positive and calm start to your day.

The key is to pick a time that you can consistently commit to practicing your ritual.

Rituals don’t have to take an incredible amount of time, but they do need to be practiced regularly in order for you to experience the quick and easy slip into your desired mindset.
 
Real Life Inspiration
 
One of my clients was struggling to calm her mind and get good restful sleep at night, so the ritual below is what we pulled together for her to try.

​She practiced this ritual every night, just before turning off the lights, and by her next massage appointment 4 weeks later was already experiencing improved sleep which in turn made the days easier to handle. It was still a work in progress for her, but she was beginning to feel less overwhelmed and stressed; and the plan was to continue with regularly incorporating her ritual into her bedtime routine.

1. 1.  Lavender essential oil on the palms of her hands (something she already had at home)
2. 2.  Complete quiet
3. 3.  Moon Piercing Breath
4. 4.  3 Good things from the day

I hope this inspires you and helps guide you in creating your own ritual to calm your stressed nervous system.

If you are needing some further help pulling your ritual together please let me know and we can chat.
 
Remember that this is an extremely personal ritual and what works for me might actually stress you out. 
 
So do what works for you!