The 7 Rituals: Number 2

Calming practices that help bring more harmony into your day.

Ikigai is about experiencing your essence and purpose in harmony with whatever you do.

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Days filled with stress, anxiety, and worry separate us from the harmony required to live out our Ikigai.

Here are seven rituals of calmness that you can practice to help bring more harmony into your day.

In this ongoing series, I will list all seven and detail each in this and subsequent posts.

If you missed the first you can find it here.

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The Rituals

These seven rituals will help you cultivate an attitude of calmness:

1. A calm morning.

2. Observe your response.

3. Take things without judgment.

4. Express gratitude.

5. Create stress coping habits.

6. Mono-task.

7. Reduce noise.

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Observe your response:

We often react without thinking. Our reactions come without much thought, based too often on fear and insecurities.  A quick reaction is rarely the most rational, appropriate, or even productive way to act. 

If we respond rather than react, we can take in the situation and calmly decide the best course of action based on our values.

Let’s take a common example: You’re driving down the highway and someone cuts you off in traffic, nearly causing a wreck.

📌 React: You get angry, perhaps honking the horn. They gesture back and you honk the horn again. Your anger heats up and you are frustrated for the remainder of the drive home.

📌 Respond: You notice your anger reaction, but pause, take a breath and consider the situation. No damage was done to either car and your trip home won’t be noticeably delayed. You can recall times you’ve done the same thing accidentally and decide to give the other driver the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they did the same thing, accidentally cutting you off.

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🌀 Reflection:

Take some time this next week to notice your response to frustrations, injustices, or disappointing events.

🌱 What are you feeling in these circumstances? Notice all of the feelings…frustration, anger, disappointment, betrayal, whatever it is.

🌱 Are there outside events impacting the way you feel about this one situation? Were you already tired and frustrated by something else that contributed to this being a bigger frustration than it really needs to be?

My personal hot button right now is customer service issues. My commitment is to be extra observant of my feelings and response in those situations.

If you find yourself wanting to react, take a moment without acting and just breathe.

You’ll find in most cases, the urgency to respond goes away. Then there is an opportunity to apply thought, reason, patience, and grace to the situation.