What is a ritual? Any activity which carries or can carry symbolic meaning. 

Rituals appeal to our desire for recognizable patterns, our need to place ourselves into a familiar frame of reference that connects past, present and future and inside which we can anticipate and plan. They reinforce the knowledge shortcuts we create for ourselves to make sense of the world.

Rituals transform the most mundane objects and activities and imbue them with memories, values, intentions. 

A wedding dress, a favorite flower, a traditional greeting, typing a password, always placing the keys in the same pocket, these are conscious and unconscious rituals that make us feel safe and settled in our lives and reduce the number of details we need to remember in order to function.

We instinctively impart important events in our lives with symbolic meaning, we wear special attire, we use special words and phrases, we create traditions around them. Traditions are nothing more than collections of rituals, born of the emotional life of a community and strengthened by their repeated use over centuries, often by many generations.

That does’t mean rituals are foreign constructions that intrude upon us from outside. We create our own rituals all the time, with of without the awareness of this fact: the way we drink our coffee, our morning routines, the way we wash our hands, the way we check ourselves in the mirror, cooking habits, sleeping patterns, interacting with nature and pets.

We comb our hair, we brush our teeth, we put our coats on the same way, day in, day out, without even realizing, such is the power of habit, of routine.

This symbolic association is more than an intellectual exercise, it gets embodied, it sinks into our automatic responses in the same way we no longer have to make effort to remember motion sequences when we play the piano or drive a car. It becomes a shortcut for reframing perception.

Here is a simple exercise. People take off their ring or their watch when they wash their hands. Next time notice this gesture is automatic, the object is always placed in the same location, and always in the same way. Try to associate a sound, or a color, to this automatic gesture. Always remember to do it when you wash your hands. Soon your gesture of removing the accessory and placing it in its spot will become that sound and that color.

If a mundane gesture can become a sound or a color, it can also become any abstract object you choose, from happiness to mathematical concepts, images, emotions, any mental content.

If there is one thing worth remembering, is that the power of a ritual resides in its repetition and familiarity, which allows it to access the unconscious and shape emotions without a fight.

In conclusion, what are the points worth remembering?

1. A ritual is any activity that carries or can carry symbolic meaning.
2. Rituals work below the threshold of awareness. The tedium of their repetition dissolves into muscle memory to appeal to deeper and otherwise inaccessible areas of our mind.
3. Rituals imbue mundane objects and activities with emotions, memories, values, intentions. They are invisible but powerful psychological tools.
4. Any routine can be actively associated with meaning, and thus become a ritual.
5. A true ritual is not a special activity, it draws from daily life.
6. The symbolic association of a ritual gesture gets embodied, it sinks into our automatic responses like playing the piano or driving a car.
7. Rituals access emotions directly, without any interference from the conscious mind.