Routine Vs. Ritual

No, it's not just semantics

It’s a new year for a new you. While you start trying to set your new routines in motion, you might also have considered the concept of “mindfulness” as a priority or value while making your resolutions for the year. How do you make a routine of mindfulness?

Short answer: you don’t.

Routine is nearly the opposite of mindfulness.

Here’s what Oxford has to say about it.

rou·tine

[ro͞oˈtēn]

NOUN

1. a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program:

   "I settled down into a routine of work and sleep" · [more]

   synonyms:

   procedure · practice · pattern · drill · regime · regimen · groove · [more]

ADJECTIVE

1. performed as part of a regular procedure rather than for a special reason:

   "the principal insisted that this was just a routine annual drill"

   synonyms:

   standard · regular · customary · accustomed · normal · usual · [more]

VERB

rare

1. organize according to a routine:

   "all had been routined with smoothness"

Here’s my issue with routines. They aren’t special. They aren’t considerate. They aren’t meant to be thoughtful. They are meant to be mindless patterns or habits one gets into that become automatic behavior, routine. Do you see why this precludes “mindfulness”?

Notice, too, that you have to develop a routine. You have to practice and get into it. So, then, you may just as easily fall out of it and have to start this long process over again of developing this automatic, mindless habit albeit a healthy one. Still, is mindless repetition ever truly healthy? I’ll let the reader sit with that.

So, the more I think about it, for myself, the more I am leaning toward ritual.

Here’s what Oxford has to say about rituals.

rit·u·al

[ˈriCH(o͞o)əl]

NOUN

1. a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order:

   "the role of ritual in religion" · "the ancient rituals of Christian worship"

   SIMILAR: formalities proceedings business rigmarole

ADJECTIVE

1. relating to or done as a religious or solemn rite:

   "ritual burial"

To me, ritual has a sense of purpose and importance. There’s no drawbacks in doing a ritual once. It matters if you do it once or a thousand times. Ritual is not trying to be something. It doesn’t take repetition to make it what it is. There may be an evolution of ritual, but that doesn’t take away from the first time or the second time or any time you practice it. So, too, does it not destroy or weaken your practice to miss a ritual. Picking it up again the following day isn’t the same as going back to square one nor having to start over. Each practice is sacred because it’s about right now, not tomorrow, not day one of 90 to make it stick. It’s all now.

Ritual is done to feel a sense of sacred connection, whatever that means to you. This connection is something that awakens you, deepens your sense of innate value and worth. Breathing could be a ritual. Most often though, breathing is a routine and inasmuch as it becomes just routine, something sacred is lost despite never-ending, automatic practice.

My husband said to me today, “but some things just need to be done every day.” Well, sure, but that doesn’t preclude making them a conscious choice and practicing them with mindfulness, making them sacred.

Something in the soul of every person craves ritual, and when that craving is satisfied, all of life becomes more meaningful.

So, while I am certain the practices you are doing need to be done, perhaps, they need to be done in such a way as to save your soul or at least elevate it.

I wonder, if bringing the conscious contemplation of ritual to your every day once ordinary practices, you become more or less inclined to do them “religiously”.

Will making your resolutions into rituals rather than trying to deliberately establish automatic routines and habits make one more inclined to keep them throughout the year(s)? For the aforementioned reasons of skipping a day or two of a routine creating a sense of “starting over,” I suspect ritual would be more likely sustainable. Also, skipping a ritual doesn’t make it less sacred or burden one with shame or guilt, the sense one ruined all progress that past rituals attained. Picking up a ritual one hasn’t done in a while is just as special and important, if not moreso than doing it daily. Has a far more mindful and light feel to it than starting over a routine after falling off the wagon. Now, I have the heavy burden of committing another 90 days straight of doing this without interruption to make it real. Here we go, day 1 of 90.

So, yeah. It’s not just semantics. It matters to choose to be conscious in whatever practice one commits oneself to. As you consciously choose each day, or at least as I do, I tell myself, this was a choice, this was my choice, this was me making a very good choice and being here to see it through.

I just wanted to offer this food for thought as we are closing the first month of this new year and considering what worked out, what stuck and what didn’t. If you happen to have been injured (as I was) and dropped the ball on several of your planned routines, perhaps consider scrapping those plans and intending to commit yourself to starting February breathing… as a ritual.