Making Magic in May Series: Week 2: Creating a Daily Self-care Ritual
It takes a lot of trust to go to bed on time—trust that there will be enough time to learn all I want to learn, to create all I want to create, and to make all the connections I want to make—which brings me quickly to this week’s Making Magic topic: Creating a Daily Self-care Ritual.First a story. I’ve been on fire lately with work. I’m passionate about sharing my love of creativity, self-care and the magic that I experience from consistently weaving both into my daily life. Sometimes with all that magic and creativity, synchronicities will lead me down a new path of inquiry. A few weeks ago I found myself suddenly thirsty to know more about tarot. I've been pulling my own cards daily for a few months and regularly for the past few years but I haven’t studied tarot before. Over these weeks I fell in love with the art of tarot and the depth of metaphor, story, and archetypes living in each artist’s rendition. Fun? Yes! But with kids, work, and building this coaching practice I adore, I started pushing bedtime later and later.With less and less sleep, it wasn’t long before I was challenged to live my day-to-day life with intention. I felt too tired to be creative in the kitchen, to laugh with the kids, to show up to my yoga practice, to write the blog post series I set out to write on everyday magic. In fact, it felt like the magic had floated away like a balloon on a string.
Even with our best intentions to live a creative life, it's the ritual of daily self-care that allows for magic and metaphor to enliven the mundane.
Here’s why: Self-care is self-awareness. When you regularly attend to your body's needs you become more attuned to subtle shifts in and around you (another way to say, magic). You are more able to respond instead of react to life and relationships. You begin to hear your intuition and gain more confidence and clarity from this authentic wisdom within you.You may already know self-care and weave it into your life. Maybe you head to the gym, a walk, or a yoga class. Maybe you drink a green smoothie, take your supplements, or enjoy a salt bath. So what do I mean by ritual and why is it important?
A daily self-care ritual is a moment of devotion in your day to your well-being (body, mind, soul).
It’s a pause for deep nourishment that rejuvenates. It could take 5 minutes or an hour.
A self-care ritual is a creative act that sustains you and connects you to the creative essence that runs through us all (the magic!).
A ritual is something you can drop into, be held by, and show up to.
Ultimately, the daily self-care ritual primes you for intentional, creative living.
Sounds good, doesn’t it. This tool has been the most powerful in my life. You can create your own right now. Here are some tips:
Find a moment in your day to carve out space for your ritual. Morning, afternoon, evening, bedtime. Remember it doesn’t have to be more than 5 minutes but it can be. Find a spot in your day that you can come back to regularly—your devotion makes it a ritual.
Now pick a form of self-care that’s calling to you—sleep, hydration, exercise, stillness, nutrition are a few examples. What are you craving right now? Where could you use a little attention or awareness?
Get creative with it! Invite the senses in for deepest soul nourishment. Are you a music person? Is aromatherapy your thing? Are you visual? Taste can come in with a special tea flavor you like, or coffee in your favorite mug, a bite of chocolate. Is there water involved, earth, open sky, a warm fire? What is it that would make this ritual truly yours? What will make you want to return to it again and again?
Let’s use my story as an example of how to create your own daily self-care ritual. With so much excitement around my tarot learning it will take more than just knowing when my optimum bedtime is (it’s 10:30pm) to get myself to bed. Luckily, I already have a yummy bedtime ritual that I can drop back into. It was created years ago and it’s supported me ever since. Between 10pm and 10:30pm I make a cup of tea, turn down the house, and head upstairs. I make sure to have some reading that I will look forward to with my tea. I get myself ready for bed, pull back my covers and spray my lavender hydrosol. I enjoy my warm tea and read until 10:30-45pm and then lights out. Falling back into this bedtime ritual sets me up for a better start to my days.
I feel more energetic, less foggy, and more attuned to the magic all around me. Life holds more meaning and metaphor again. I’m living intentionally—no longer just surviving.
I would love to hear from you. Let me know if you already have a daily self-care ritual that brings more magic to your life or if you create one this week. Comment below or contact me personally, jenn@jenngallucci.com.