As the clock strikes midnight on the 31st December, many of us will enter the new year determined to make some fundamental changes, whether to our personal appearance, our attitude or our circumstances. By mid-February, the majority of us will have given up on these New Year’s resolutions altogether.
Rather than focusing on setting hard and fast goals and setting ourselves up to fail, why not take a gentler approach by embracing ritual as a way to mark the end of one year and the dawn of a new one?
Rituals are structured, symbolic acts that help to shift our mindset, bypassing the logical mind and speaking more to our spirit. Many people believe that the first twelve days of the year are an especially potent time for performing rituals, symbolising the twelve months of the year and setting the tone for the days and weeks to come.
If you’re searching for a quiet way to honour the space between old and new, try one of the following simple rituals and see how you feel afterwards.