How to Create a Ritual or Ceremony that is Transformational

INITIATE your quality of life by doing a ceremony – acknowledge that big shift or change in your life.

We all have things in our life we want to change. When we’re ready to make that change, tired of the way things have been, it’s a good time to do a ceremony to officialize the change you’re making.  (Unsure if you’re ready? Here’s a way to assess your overall quality of life from Eurostat.)

Deciding to make a change means making a promise to your new life – it’s a serious commitment to your new self,.  By doing a ceremony, especially with other people witnessing you, you add a lot of weight to the promise you’re making to your new life.  You create momentum for your new, improved quality of life, kicking it off right.

Ceremony converts your Subconscious Drives to Allies

Maybe you’ve tried to make changes before and they didn’t stick.  Likely your subconscious mind roped you back into your old ways, because it’s responsible for your drives and urges.  Convincing your subconscious that something’s really different makes your promises much easier to keep, then your new life can thrive. Use a ceremony to tell your subconscious you’re making a serious break with your old life, and make your new life REAL to your subconscious mind.

Amplify the subconscious impact of a ceremony by using physical symbolism.  Associate colors, symbols, etc with the old, then in the peak of the ceremony, remove all of those and replace them with symbolism of your new life. Here are a couple ideas:

• Shedding clothes and putting on new ones
• Burning something related to the old and building an altar to the new
• Breaking stuff like cheap plates from Goodwill, or smashing pumpkins (yeah!!)
• Cutting your hair or changing your look
• Drawing pictures, dancing, other forms of creative expression
• Clearing land and planting a plant or tree

Mini-ceremony format

 

Use this ceremony to program your subconscious (which loves ritual, symbolism, visualization etc) to support you in your new life.  Your subconscious drives and motivations will become your allies for creating your new life.

Note: Ceremonies are more powerful/meaningful when you do them with other people.  This is because you are reinforcing each other’s changes by invoking the power of witnessing.

Preparation:

• Set aside a specific time and place. Get a bit of food and drink together for the day of the ceremony.
• Get clear about the quality of life goal for your ceremony, what are you transforming, what are you promising to change? Next decide on your symbolism for the Old and the New, including how you’ll celebrate your New.

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  Decide what energies you’ll call in to support you in your ceremony, these are the sacred divine witnesses that related to your personal connection with the Divine. In my ceremonies, I always call the directions and elementals, my highest guides, and God and Goddess.
• You may create an altar with symbols for all the energies related to your ceremony. Use your intuition.  You may also want to have a pen/paper handy.
• Now you have a rough plan for your ceremony. Keep your plan loose to allow for intuition and spiritual guidance to come through.

Day of Ceremony

1. Clear the space with some smudge (borrow ideas from my house clearing blog post)
2. Invite in sacred beings and energies who match with your intention to come support and witness you. Invite the Elements, angels, God, Goddess, other divine beings you resonate with.
3. In front of your divine (and human) witnesses, declare the change you’re making. What is your promise to your new self?
4. Get firmly in the mindset of the “old.” Accept and acknowledge everything about it.  Be willing to receive the blessings of everything you learned.  Then use the process you already decided for letting it go.

5. 

   Now you are in a chaos space, between the old and the new. Feel yourself in the chaos space of not knowing everything that will happen in your new life.  Navigate chaos by staying curious, willing, and courageous.  Beware, it’s human nature to rush this step, however, stay in it until your intuition and guides say you’re ready for the next step. Dancing, music, meditation, and free-writing are ideas for staying in this uncomfortable space as long as needed.

6. 

   Begin shifting into your NEW Life. Center yourself and gather your energy. Get yourself into an attitude of confidence and commitment.  Now take your step into the “new” as you designed earlier.  Write down what you “see” yourself doing in this new life using I AM statements, present tense and positive.
7. When you feel completely shifted into your New Self, it’s time to Celebrate! The celebration is more important than it may seem; you are shaking off the last residues of the old. Relish your new self, your new chapter, enjoy some excitement!
8. To move the ceremonial energy towards closure, eat/drink a little something.
9. Express gratitude to the helper beings, human and divine.
10. Declare that your ceremony is complete.

After the ceremony, regularly (2x/day) visualize your goals and dreams being true right here right now in present time. (This is mental positivity training!)  Keep your promise, and let nothing stand in the way of your new life.

In this ceremony, you programmed your subconscious (which loves ritual, symbolism, visualization etc) to support you in your new life.  Your subconscious drives and motivations are now your allies for creating your new life.

How does a chocolate ceremony sound???  This is just one type of Shamanic ceremony!