The Power of Everyday Magic:

An introduction to ritual

Ritual is a kind of everyday magic. Where we do not merely assign meaning. We create it.

A ritual can be as simple as a morning tea. When something more is going on than simply hydration and tannin. Perhaps we are saying "I matter". "I'm worth this time". A birthday party is a ritual, saying "We love you". Every major religion has rituals of some kind. Betrothals like weddings are rituals celebrating and consolidating love and commitment.

If a footballer has a particular ritual before taking a penalty whether they’re able to complete their ritual to hypnotise themselves will have a big impact on whether they’ll score. Rafael Nadal famously uses ritual to prepare and perform. . It’s a way of bypassing the conscious mind to tap into the unconscious. In the Inner Game of Tennis, a book about much more than tennis, (though will almost certainly improve your serve) with great psychological insights drawn from Zen, author Tim Gallwey describes this as the difference between Self 1, the analysing mind and Self 2, the deeper, knowing aspect. Peak performance is reached when Self 1 gets out the way of Self 2. The magic of ritual can help us break the spell of the thinking mind.

Unfamiliar rituals can be mystifying and even seem ridiculous.