Creating Personal Rituals: Using Coaching to Make Your Life Feel More Sacred

The foundation of my holistic coaching practice is that every aspect of our lives is intimately interwoven. I imagine life as an intricately spun spider’s web, and I imagine spirituality as the morning dew that settles on this structure and brings it to life, glistening and drawing our attention to the details and incomprehensible beauty.

When we connect passion, integrity and intention to our goals and actions, they inevitably become spiritual. In Journal of Palliative Medicine, Dr. Christina Puchalski defines spirituality as “…the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and…experience their connectedness to the moment, self,  others,  nature, and to the significant or sacred.” Therefore, as coaches, when we help clients “seek and express meaning” in their lives, our coaching is spiritual.

My coaching emphasizes spiritual practice because I believe, as best said by Will Durant paraphrasing Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do.” Rituals are a unique type of spiritual practice because, unlike habits, they mark milestones.

When thinking of the word “ritual,” what image comes to mind? Perhaps secretive ancient ceremonies amid the mysterious structures at Stonehenge. If you grew up in a religious community, you might imagine the sights and sounds of weekly and seasonal holy days. Or maybe your image is more mundane, and ritual conjures your Saturday morning self-care routine of coffee, a neighborhood walk and a crossword puzzle. All these ideas about ritual—and everything in between—are accurate. Rituals are created spiritual experiences or intentionally crafted ceremonies that recognize, honor and work with aspects of our lives. I invite you to join me and explore using rituals as a highly personalized tool for any coach.

My journey with this tool began when a friend asked me for help getting through a period of major upheaval in her family. I found myself asking open-ended questions to help her define her goal of an embodied practice to recognize this difficult time and help her stay grounded while learning and growing. Our conversation, fueled by coaching questions, resulted in a meaningful ritual and action steps for my friend to take. She created a practice that included daily yoga and journaling, which culminated in a ritual burning of journal pages. The ritual burning symbolized the transformation of her experience and ability to let go of the feelings and move forward. I learned that creating personal rituals helps us access a deeper connection to our truest selves and that which is greater than us.

My approach to using this tool starts with the fact that anything can be ritualized. Deepening spirituality is about finding the sacred in everything. I encourage clients to keep a record of their rituals for remembering and reflecting on spiritual moments. A record can also be helpful if possibly sharing with others in similar situations. I begin with the question: What do you want to recognize or honor? Some examples include a feeling, event, period of time, goal, person, place or a repeating cycle. Once the what is established, inquire, Why do you want to create this ritual? The most important work is spending time fully exploring the range of feelings surrounding the what and identifying the goals for those feelings.

The remaining practical questions bring the ritual to life.

Who will be involved in the ritual? Only the individual, or will others be included? If the latter, communicating expectations and providing resources is essential for everyone to understand the significance of the ritual and participate appropriately.

Where will the ritual take place? The location can be simply wherever you are right now or intentionally selected for significance to the ritual’s purpose. The sacred space we create is the container for the ritual and might include candles, items from nature, images and other objects connected to the ritual’s meaning.

When will the ritual happen? Time can be another important component of ritual. Night or day, month and season can contribute to the desired mood.

Finally, how will the ritual be enacted? Answering this question determines the content and actions of the ritual. Content includes words (like quotes and stories), music and periods of conscious silence.

Actions refer to participants’ posture, movement and interaction with the sacred space.

I have endeavored to share the basic components of using ritual creation as a coaching tool. As you can imagine, the possibilities are truly limitless. I hope some aspect of this practice will resonate with you. I believe, as coaches, we are uniquely positioned to help people become more spiritually minded and creating rituals is an accessible and powerful way to change the world. This is especially relevant during our time of global pandemic and cultural paradigm shifts.

Many people are looking for ways to mark and process this time and the feelings of freedom, grief, loss and change they are experiencing. Creating rituals can help us honor these shifts and work through our feelings and goals to deepen our spiritual lives.