Practices for Your Mental Health
This isn’t a place to practice. It’s your mental emergency toolkit.
When you feel anxiety taking hold, stress getting the better of you or your mind racing, open the image at random, choose a ritual and give it a go. You don’t have to believe in it; you just have to give it a go.
In psychology (particularly in approaches such as transpersonal psychology, narrative therapy, EMDR, or compassion-focused therapy), therapeutic rituals are very powerful complementary tools.
A therapeutic ritual is a sequence of intentional, symbolic, and conscious actions designed to facilitate emotional healing, self-awareness, or personal transformation.
We drink coffee or water while looking at our cell phones, feeling nothing.
The first time you drink something during the day (water, coffee, tea), do it without looking at a screen. Feel the warmth of the cup in your hands. Smell the aroma. Feel the liquid going down your throat.
We get home, but our minds are still at the office or preoccupied with our problems.
Every time you walk through a door (when leaving work, entering your home, or entering your room), pause for 2 seconds in the doorway. Take a deep breath and visualize leaving your mental “baggage” on the threshold. As you step through, you enter a new mental space.
RITUALS
Closing the Ritual:
Automatic Writing: Right after the ritual, if you feel the urge, write down on a piece of paper everything you said or felt. This helps release the energy from your body and anchor it in the physical world.
The Emotional “Crash”: It’s normal to feel exhausted or emotionally sensitive a few hours afterward. Treat yourself with extreme kindness. Eat something nutritious, take a hot bath, or rest.
Frequency: You don’t need to perform this ritual every day. Do it when you feel like the “pressure cooker” is about to explode, or once a month as emotional maintenance.
Safety: If, while looking in the mirror, you feel that your distress is uncontrollable or you feel disconnected from reality, stop the ritual, hug a pillow, breathe, and seek support from a mental health professional. The goal is to heal, and sometimes we need outside guidance to help us along the way.
Remember: The longest and most important relationship you’ll ever have is the one you have with yourself. This ritual is the first step toward becoming your own safe haven.