Ritual 33: Monday, August 13, 2007

(Near New) Waxing Moon

Monday the 13th doesn't come with the same stigma as Friday the 13th. Still, there's enough cultural superstition around just the number itself to make city planners, building developers and hotel chains opt out of using it. There's no historically clear reason for this fear of the first 'teen, but some people like to link its negative connotation to the size of a Witch's coven or the presence of Judas as the thirteenth guest at the Last Supper.

You can fish around for a good reason or contrive a justification for any unfounded fear. You could just as easily accumulate evidence for the opposite version of reality. In the case of the "unlucky" number thirteen, you could affirm it as a number of luck by looking to the Egyptians who esteemed the numeral or to U.S. history with its original thirteen colonies and the thirteen signers of the Declaration of Independence.

A superstition is a psychic groove, a pattern of thought, loaded with emotional charge. Your subconscious is powerful enough to draw to you circumstances that prove the "truth" of its grooves. Use this near new moon on this numerically significant day to switch gears on a mental groove that is simply not serving you anymore.

Most people are barraged with mental chatter: Are you really going to wear that? Is he mad at me? Oh, that's not going to work.

An endless stream of "what-ifs" and self-sabotaging mental chatter prompts us to design prefabricated responses to all the possibilities that may cross our paths. We think to ourselves: "If I do this, then people will react like that. I won't like that, so I'll do this other thing instead."

This kind of thinking robs of us authenticity and spontaneity. Its motives are fear and control. Your mental energy is better spent on creating a world you want to live in, not on creating a canned response to a world you want to avoid.

Here's a technique for busting a sabotaging groove.

Pause and listen to your inner chatter right now. Just, sit and silently observe your thoughts for 5 minutes. Were there any mental mumblings that chronically keep you from living your life freely and authentically?

While you contemplate that question, begin to verbalize your thoughts. Instead of just listening to the inner chatter silently in your head, listen to it out loud, coming out of your own mouth.

Talking out loud allows you to review with clarity the content of your thoughts. It's harder to skip over the mind's obvious hijinx when there's an observer. When you talk out loud, you become a more engaged observer of your own thoughts.

Choose one familiar thought you have lots of life experience to support as truth, but which you also know is not helpful. Got it? Good.

(Mine's this: "I don't have time for this." Whatever "this" is, there's a groove that says there's something else I should be doing.)

Say your thought aloud. Repeat it. Keep repeating it. Now stand up and start to move your body in some kind of repetitive pattern. Let your body create a physical groove to match the psychic one you're working with. Get the groove going strong.

Now turn 180 degrees to face the other direction and begin to move your body in a very different way to how you were. For example, if you were facing the sofa and swinging your arms, maybe you turned around and are facing the window. And instead of swinging your arms you're touching your toes.

Facing this new direction and with this new motion, switch the thought. "Thirteen is an unlucky number" becomes "thirteen is a lucky number" or "thirteen is the prime number between twelve and fourteen."

(I switched my thought from: "I don't have time for this" to "I am free to do as I choose.")

Give yourself a few moments with your new thought and motion.

That original unhelpful thought was not carved into your psyche overnight. It takes time to get into a new groove. And so, with this Moonday ritual comes a moon-cycle challenge:

For the next thirty days, say your new thought and do this new motion every day when you get out of bed in the morning and before you go to sleep. Watch how your subsconscious attracts circumstances and opportunities to prove your new perspective.

After the ritual, share your experience in our community section.