If you are like me living in a city that has a seasonal weather change, then you are looking forward to transitioning from Winter to Spring. You may be anticipating putting away your coats, scarves and gloves, and basking in the smell of the rained-on earth and new colors sprouting up from the ground. Perhaps you are looking forward to some of the rituals that mark the Spring and Summer months – the planting of flowers, spring cleaning your home, preparing lighter meals and celebrating holidays that fall in April through July.
Celebrating religious and seasonal holidays seem to be some of our more common shared rituals. Some of us celebrate Passover or Easter with a visit to Church or our families home for a seder – and others of us look forward to discounted chocolate at the grocery store! In Chicago, I look forward to the Spring flower shows at Garfield Conservatory, and at Macy’s Department store and get ideas for my own outdoor patio. However you mark the seasonal change, these rituals are essentially our culture’s sacred habits.
According to Dr. Judith Wright in her book “The Soft Addiction Solution”, many of us have 100’s of rituals we do that we do not realize are just the opposite of sacred. These rituals she calls “soft addictions”, and they tend to numb us and rob us of time, money and our consciousness. The purpose and intent of our soft addictions are essentially the same as the sacred rituals we do so meaningfully at other times of the year. They are an attempt to sooth us from life’s anxieties, disappointments and transitions. (I could go very deep into the spiritual purpose of the ritual, and I suggest you do a google on this topic and allow yourself to follow your interest to learn more.)
What is a ritual but “an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner” according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary. When applied to religion it makes sense – Catholic Mass and most religious sermons are highly ritualistic. A determined order and set of acts repeated again and again, over and over through millennia. However, isn’t this also true for our soft addictions? Think about what you do when you get home from work when you have had a hard day? Or when you wake up and you may not be feeling that excited about what lies ahead of you? Or when you have unplanned time ahead of you? Most of us engage in activities that numb us, eating unconsciously, turning on the television, looking at our phones….all these habits of our unconsciousness are labelled as soft addictions. And we do them again and again, repeating them so they are so well rehearsed that it is hard NOT to do them! (http://www.roughtype.com/?p=8195)
If we can begin to see these soft addictions as rituals we have built to deal with life’s anxiety, then perhaps we can create new rituals which do not also numb us. Let’s look at some of our daily transitions where we are vulnerable to soft addictions: sleep to wake, home to work, work to home, and wake to sleep.
Waking up consciously can be a challenge – as the mornings grow darker and colder it can be harder to get out of bed. I have begun to put into practice a really easy Ayurvedic practice upon waking up: splashing my face with open eyes with water 7 times to balance my energy and using the element of water to wash away the night. Imagine if you had a ritual to do in the morning that you enjoyed doing that put you in touch with nature – it’s a little more attractive than dying to make that first pot of coffee and hauling your carcass into the shower?
Going home from work is also a time when our fears about the day ahead likely cause us to be distracted as we walk into our place of work, and a few of us have a ‘being late’ soft addiction that create worry and rush. I tend to like quiet and a clean space before I deal with my emails and other people, and if I have not cleared my workspace the night before, the ritual of organizing my space and lighting a candle is helpful. You might also say a mantra to yourself, or read a position or inspirational quote to start your day.
Transitioning home from work is also a danger zone for the softly addicted. The day’s challenges and unfinished business with work relationships and tasks linger and long to be finished and completed but are often not. Why not create a ritual of talking through your day with someone on your way home, or even do something as simple as taking off your shoes to transition from the outside, and washing your hands to purify yourself of the day as you come into your home.
And putting ourselves to bed consciously is surprisingly difficult for many of us. I coach a handful of executives who are extremely productive during the day, but cannot relax and put themselves to bed. The pull to read through articles on our cell phones, browse social media, or other random tasks keeps us from having good sleep and effects our next day. So many studies show that doing things like getting to bed at a regularly time, meditating, taking a bath, eating nothing after 7pm, plugging your phone in somewhere else, is helpful, but so challenging to get ourselves to do.
All of these things take dedication and hard work, but they are so worth the pay off. Just pick one tiny little ritual to add in instead of trying to limit your soft addictions. Think of this as a sacred celebration that can happen every day and not just once a year as in our holiday and seasonal rituals. If we can begin to add in beautiful, meaningful transition habits and see them as important as the rituals we do as a culture to celebrate our seasons and holidays, we will be a much more in touch and satisfied culture.
Soft Addictions 