Why Tradition And Ritual Help Us Feel Better

The holiday season is a time for celebration, recovery, ritual, and tradition. Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Solstice, this is the time of year when many of us choose to invite tradition and ritual into our lives, even if that’s unfamiliar to us. Tradition is something like the passing of the torch, and keeping the torch aflame is no easy task. To make things even more complicated, the torch that’s been handed to you will not be the torch you hand down to the next person. In order to make your traditions work for you and your chosen tribe, you may have to modify them to change with the times and the individuals performing the ritual. 

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” -Hamilton Wright Mabie

How Spirituality Helps Your Mental Health

It’s not always obvious where spirituality can help us, especially if we weren’t raised in a positive spiritual environment. When we don’t have a strong background of tradition, it can be far too easy to dismiss the traditions of others and completely miss the value of the whole exercise. We live in a world that is always changing, and mostly beyond our control. Having a healthy sense of spirituality can be an anchoring force for your mental health when you have to accept the often upsetting motions of a universe that seems to operate completely independent of our behavior. So how can we invite spirituality, tradition, and ritual into our lives in a way that feels meaningful and authentic?

• Read A Text. When finding your sense of spirituality, it can be highly educational to seek out and read a religious or philosophical book, especially ones you haven’t experienced before. Our own sense of spirituality matures when we come to our beliefs on our own terms, and one of the strongest ways to discover that is by exposing yourself to many different opinions and learning what truly agrees with you. Spirituality is highly personal, so the text that works for you might be wildly different than the text that would work for someone else. 
• Talk To Your Higher Power. Coming to terms with your spirituality requires having a relationship with the unknown. The basis of all spirituality is that there is something beyond ourselves. By talking to your higher power (whatever that is, and it can be whatever you want), you can set the tone for your personal relationship with the unknown. 

What’s The Point of Tradition?

Traditions are behaviors that have been passed down from person to person. Over time, these traditions grow in meaning and act as mile markers throughout our lives. How can we use tradition to lessen the burden of our mental health and improve our lives?

• Changing Your Perspective. Tradition can help us see outside of ourselves by putting us in touch with both our ancestors and the people around us. Traditions are passed down to us, but then we keep those traditions alive by sharing them with the people around us. 
• Helping Us Heal. If we’ve had a negative experience with tradition, ritual, or spirituality, often our gut instinct is to reject a relationship with all of the above. We try to take refuge in skepticism, apathy, or despair, but by forming a new relationship with tradition that honors our values, boundaries, and beliefs, we can create our own rituals that suit us.
• Passing Our Knowledge On To Others. Through tradition, humans have passed on their ancestral knowledge from generation to generation. In choosing which traditions and rituals you take part in, you are cultivating the knowledge within you that is worth keeping alive. By sharing these rituals with another, that wisdoms can persist in the both of you.

Where Can I Learn How To Utilize Ritual?

Many people have trauma caused by a strict and traditional upbringing. However, tradition and ritual can really help us if used in a way that suits us. We can learn to make our own traditions and rituals.  Michael can help you get in touch with your spirituality and embrace tradition and ritual on your own terms.  Michael says “It wasn’t until I began practicing and learning the martial arts that I felt a calling to use the energy I was working with to incorporate it into my daily interactions and introspection. While I was working on my Masters, the teachings of martial arts and eastern philosophy coincided with my academic lessons in a way that gave me perspective on how I could better myself, my mood, and hopefully the lives of those around me. Since then, I have felt a great improvement on my outlook and my ability to assist others in battling their own struggles and crossroads.” Click here to schedule a consultation.

“There are three stages of man: he believes in Santa Claus; he does not believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus.” –Bob Phillips