Routine Has Value

I want to clarify my position on routine.

You are what you think!

I watched “What The Bleep Do We Know?” ages ago in theaters, and one of the undisputed portions of the program was on neuroscience. They have this fantastic sequence explaining how the cells of the body hold receptor sites for various neurotransmitters called “neuropeptides.” A particular neuropeptide as I understood it links to an emotion. The cell receptor site for a particular emotion will roughly accept its complement.

As we go through life, with our day to day routines, our cells gradually produce more receptor sites for the predominant neuropeptide. If, for example you were always grateful, the neuropeptide that carried that grateful emotional signal would have an easy time finding receptor sites for that feeling. However, if one goes through day to day life with constant anxiety, gradually, the receptor sites of all the cells in the body would be attuned to feelings of anxiety. If you wanted to switch to gratitude, you would have to routinely and consciously insert a practice of feeling grateful every single day for months so that when your cells replace themselves with daughter cells, they would have ample receptor sites to connect your physical body with that positive emotional state.

This is the value of routine. Routine helps us create new receptor sites, new neurotransmissions, helps us connect more with our desired emotional states, makes them more tangible and grows or rewires new neural pathways. The practice has to be ongoing and consistent to make all these benefits more attainable and sustainable.

I want to come back to ritual, though. Rituals can be done routinely, but the emphasis of ritual is on the inner state, the presence. Whereas the routine’s emphasis is consistency.

I think there can be a happy marriage of ritual and routine where one isn’t lost or sacrificed for the sake of the other. I’m talking about starting consistent, varied and inspired practices. Don’t go through the motions each day checking this habit off your bullet journal or accountability group check in. Instead, constantly choose to feel something and each day, ask yourself what would best bring about that feeling today.

Now, you might think to yourself, a trip to Jamaica would really consolidate this feeling today. My advice is to go there! I’m not talking about the rigmarole of passports, boarding passes, rental cars and booking excursions. Just take 5-10 minutes of silent time to teleport yourself in your mind to where you need to be to experience said state wherein all the experiences are tailored to you feeling your neurological shift. Picture all of it as if it were happening. Listen to your heart. Put your hand over it if need be to literally get in touch with that heart space, and feel the ideal feeling.

What I don’t want you to do is the exact same thing tomorrow. Chances are if you try the same exercise and expect the same result emotionally every time, you will be disappointed. You might get bored quickly. It will definitely start to feel like a chore, and the whole point is the feeling nature of the ritual. You can’t feel ecstatic when you are also feeling bored, let down or hurried.

Each day, make a ritual of finding out what it is today that would bring you gratitude or joy or love or whatever your desired emotional state and do that. Could be a brisk walk, smelling flowers, hugging your children or petting a cat. It can’t be checking a box. It has to deeply root you in the emotional experience.

Just remember, if you aren’t feeling up to it, that this is exactly the reason you are doing this. Your body isn’t going to just start replicating cells with feelings you aren’t consciously choosing feel by itself, out of the blue. It could happen, but the odds are really low that would be a successful venture. So, pull from as deep as you can, from the excruciating longing, even if your only desire is an end to whatever is undesirable and draw from that. What would that ending feel like? Is there peace in the prospect of this present aggravation or torment ending? Put your hand over your heart and feel the experience of that peace. What if you could live with that peace or that opportunity for joy every day?

5 minutes. That’s the investment. That’s the routine part: taking the time to feel. Let the rest be a ritual, a mystical experience and a celebration. See what happens, and check back in here with your results!