Changing your everyday practice
(Nimue)
When spiritual people talk about an everyday practice it can sound like you’re supposed to pick a thing and do it forever. This isn’t’t the case. It can be easier if you pick to do the same thing at the same time every day because then you know where it fits in. That doesn’t suit everyone.
If having an everyday practice doesn’t work for you, that’s fine. It’s totally acceptable to show up at the frequency that suits you. The most important question to ask is – what do you need from this? Once a week? Eight festivals a year? It’s all good.
An everyday practice doesn’t have to mean doing exactly the same thing every day. I tend to make a little space for meditation and contemplation and that’s usually on waking or when when settling at night, but not always. What I do varies a lot. I’ve talked about some of the specific things I’ve worked on – like having conversations with my gut inhabitants. Some meditations I visit regularly and these tend to be the ones that help my body relax. The rest of the time I explore and experiment and do things for as long as they make sense to me.
You have to try things to see if they work for you. Small everyday practices can include prayer, taking a moment with your altar, watching the sunrise, movement-based meditations, gratitude, journaling, making affirmations and more. Different times may call for different things. You will also need to try different things to figure out how they work for you.
When you’re new to something it is worth giving it a few weeks to see how you do with it. When starting out with anything it’s reasonable to feel awkward about it, especially if you’re new to having a spiritual practice. You might feel foolish or self-conscious, second guess the point of what you’re doing, worry about not being good enough and other potentially self-sabotaging things. So you have to give yourself long enough to get past that and see how you feel then.
It’s good to re-assess what you’re doing, and to do so regularly. If something has become more routine than ritual, it probably isn’t serving you anymore. If you’ve tried something and after a few weeks you aren’t getting into it then maybe try something else for a while. Think about what results you were expecting to get and whether those were realistic – especially if you were trying to do something more ambitious.
Simply checking in with yourself can be a really good fixed daily practice. Taking a moment to ask ‘how do I feel?’ and ‘what do I need?’ can help guide what you do the rest of the time. Do you need to get out and feel the air on your skin today? Do you need movement or rest? Do you need to soothe your mind or stimulate it? Give yourself permission to be a bit complicated and messy, and let your feelings and inspiration guide you.
