IndieWeb Carnival: Rituals

Do I have any rituals?

This month’s IndieWeb Carnival topic is “Rituals”, which I felt like was the perfect topic for me to have as my first ever IndieWeb Carnival submission because I have been trying to figure out what rituals to add in my life for the past two years.

In 2023, I was focusing on being intentional, and that’s where I started to realize that systems/routines/rituals would be a great way to frontload intention and not have to think so much about it in the moment. Then in 2024, I wanted to find a groove to my daily life, where once again I realized that I needed something that didn’t vary as much week to week so that I could feel more grounded.

All of that is to say that I have given a lot of thought to what kinds of rituals I want in my life, but still have not found anything that has moved me enough to make it a practice. I have a lot of things that I do every day, but I’m not sure that I would call any of them rituals. I say this because I do these things for survival and/or because they bring me joy, but I’m not sure that I do them in an organized, consistently ordered (i.e. ritualistic) manner.

Finding Transition Rituals

While brainstorming for this article, I came across a concept called “transition rituals”, which are exactly what they sound like, a thing or series of things that you do while switching between tasks/contexts. These kinds of rituals are immensely useful in daily life and have even been shown to help mental health (ex: depression and ADHD).

I had never thought of these as rituals, but with that lens I was able to better understand certain parts of my day and realize that I actually do have some rituals that I practice.

My transition rituals:

• Gym: Walking to the gym, filling up my water bottle, cardio and/or lifting,
• Post-Gym: Walk back from gym, wash hands, shower, make and drink protein shake
• Coming home from work: Unpacking my bag, changing into more comfortable clothes, re-filling my water, and sitting down to watch TV/YouTube

Reading Chuck’s submission, I really like how he connected rituals to the seasons, which reminded me of my old post Living Seasonally. I think that this is something that I will definitely think more about because I want to feel each distinct season throughout the year.