Tag: Ritual

Rituals Keep These Athletes Grounded. They Can Help Parents, Too. – The New York Times

Rituals — or the tasks we perform repeatedly, not for what they accomplish but for what they mean to us — help athletes prepare their minds for the unknowns they’ll face when they perform. As a child psychiatrist, I see those rituals as anchors, not only for athletes but for all of us, to help us remember who we are and how to navigate life. By adopting our own rituals, we can bring calm, meaning and connectedness to our lives and families.

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Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers said rituals are a support system for the mind. His 90-minute ritual before an N.B.A. game is full of activities that families can try at home, like yoga, stretching and listening to mellow, atmospheric music by the band Hammock.

“I named the playlist ‘Airplane Mode’ because it’s a way for me to just shut off,” he said.

“Rituals Keep These Athletes Grounded. They Can Help Parents, Too.”.
Neha Chaudhary, M.D.
NYTIMES

Car wash as ritual cleansing

“I took the Buick to a carwash yesterday. There was a steady flow of cars entering it, and I noticed that almost all of them were perfectly clean. The institution of the carwash in California really has very little to do with the washing of cars. It’s more of a ritual — a ceremony of self-purification. It is not your car but you, its owner, who feels cleaner and better as it emerges gleaming from the assembly line, to be polished by the Chicano staff. For an extra dollar (which I spend) you can send the car through a device that subjects it to a boiling spray of Carnuba wax. This represents the annealing fire through which the soul must pass if it is to be purified. I always climb back into my cleansed car feeling, as I am sure Catholics must feel after Confession, a better man.”

The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan, edited by John Lahr