The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

by Casper ter Kuile

Find more community. Deepen your connections with others. Be with others in meaningful ways.

Find rituals to organize your life. It will boost your happiness, give you greater joy, and even add ten years to your life expectancy, science suggests.

In the midst of a crisis of isolation, where loneliness leads to deaths of despair, being truly connected isn’t a luxury. It’s a lifesaver.

Our social fabric is fraying.

social isolation is more harmful to our health than smoking fifteen cigarettes a day or being obese.

“there are perhaps no other facets that can have such a large impact on both length and quality of life—from the cradle to the grave” as social connection.

While our culture often lifts up the importance of self-care, we’re desperately in need of community care. Without it, the impact of social isolation shows up in numerous ways. It is harder to find work. We fall out of healthy habits. And in heat waves or su...

Yet despite the dire warnings that these statistics offer, there is hope. The solutions are age-old and all around us. As much as for our joy as for our health, we can deepen our existing connections to the world around us and to one another. We can regrow those relationships that have withered away. We can be one another’s medicine.