Yoga Trail Talks

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Routines vs Rituals

What are you sending out into the world?

A couple of months ago, I went to a website that is known to be very divisive.  I found what I wanted, read the opinions I was curious about, and closed out.  The next day I found myself going back in.  At first I thought it was morbid curiosity, maybe it was.  Or maybe I was drawn to the drama.  But it very quickly became part of my morning news reading routine.


Life is busy, right?  We wash in and out of routines, often without much thought.  

But routines that wash into our lives need to be examined every now and again.  We step back and ask, what is this routine bringing to me?  Has this routine become a ritual, and is this ritual worthy of me?  In yoga, a ritual is something we do with our physical body that extends into the energetic body.  The energy created from a ritual can ripple out into the world.  

   

Needless to say, my new website routine didn’t pass the sniff test.  Even though I wasn’t paying much attention to what this was bringing me, my subconscious energetic body was feeling it.  I was subtly gathering in negativity.  Did I really want this little daily dose of negative energy to ripple out into the world?  

We can’t put our fingers in our ears and tune out news, politics, suffering, life.  But we can step back, quiet our minds, and really examine the energy that our rituals are bringing to us.  If we feel more compassion than angst, more empathy than foreboding, more curious than self-righteous, then we are probably sending out the good stuff.  


If the energy is worthy of you, then it’s worthy for the world.  


Until next time, 

Laura