Episode 34: Rituals

Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the 34th episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. I have thought a lot about what I was going to talk about today. And I don’t know. And then I had a gratitude room with the others in clubhouse. And we were talking about rituals, and feeling grateful for the rituals in your life. Because when you have rituals or habits or things that you practice, you have an ability to feel better, it gives you an opportunity to feel better grateful. And I will say I guess I’m going to talk a little bit about that today. Because I literally have nothing to say today. And yet, then I thought to myself, well, what if I didn’t record this episode, what would happen? Nothing, nothing would happen. I would just have the one week that I had miss. And here’s where I reflect back on the prompt. It talks about people who do things ritualistically habitually day in and day out for a purpose, right. So if the purpose is to achieve a specific goal, let’s use that as an example. Then sometimes you have to do things when you don’t want to do things you have to go to work, even if you don’t want to go to work, you have to do things in your life that are done. Let’s see, let me say it this way, when you go to exercise, or if you’re walking, and walking in the cold and the rain, and we had talked about that this morning, you may not want to do that. But in order to keep the habit going of walking, of feeling better of whatever walking does for you, by moving your body, sometimes you have to do in in, in conditions that you’re not happy with. So So for today, the hard thing for me is I didn’t wake up thinking about what I was going to talk about, I kept thinking about what I didn’t know what I was going to talk about. And the reason I

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sharing this is because why if I don’t feel like I have something to say, Am I recording an episode and it brings me back to the rituals. So for the last, I don’t know, eight months, I guess it’s eight months, if not longer. I’ve been scripting some episodes in the early days recording, editing occasionally, and then doing it every week and putting it up on Buzzsprout, which is the platform that I use, that sends it out to all these directories. And when I get done with an episode, and it’s Saturday morning, and I feel so much better that I have recorded an episode. And I look back on that this morning. And I thought well, gee, I created this ritual of creating these podcast episodes, I’m going to say that while the metrics is not something I care about, I don’t I don’t use the metrics as the barometer from which I should continue to record episodes. While it’s nice to see that people are listening, it’s nice to hear feedback from people. It’s not the reason I go do it. The reason that I go do it is because after I complete it, I feel a whole lot better about getting something whether it’s checking it off my list, or getting something off my chest, and some episodes are going to be really revealing and some episodes are not going to be really revealing. But what I can say is that the practice the habit, the ritual of recording and editing and letting it go is something that provides me with a lot of gratitude. Not only did I accomplish it, but also that I feel like I have this goal of 52 weeks and I don’t know where I’m going to end up after 52 It’s not 52 weeks as much as it’s a gets 52 episodes, and then what happens? So I don’t know what’s going to happen. But here I am, I’m talking about habits, I’m talking about rituals, I’m talking about things that we may sometimes have to force ourselves to do in order to get through our day. Yet, at the end of it, there’s some positivity that happens as a result of it. You know, you get up in the morning, you make your bed, you make your coffee, if that’s something that you do you exercise, you take your dog for a walk, these things give a sense of familiarity that we come to rely on, or we come to look forward to it. I remember for the last year, there was this thing that I did every Sunday, which was I wake up in the morning, and I sometimes still do this, just so you know. But it wasn’t a ritual I had going on before. And I would get up in the morning, and I would go to the market, I’d get in, I’d get out of there. And then I’d go pick up some Starbucks, and then I’d watch Behance and watch some creatives doing some things. And that Starbucks latte I loved and I loved the feeling of looking forward to it every single Sunday. It doesn’t mean I couldn’t go out and get it on a Wednesday. But it was this ritual of how I I don’t know spent my Sunday and it was great. Why am I talking about all of this, if I don’t really have anything super compelling to share? Well, it made me think about what it means to be mindful or aware of the rituals that we have in our lives. Because when we’re not feeling ourselves, when we’re starting to feel like something might not be right. When something happens, that throws us off our game, if we can reflect on the gratitude and the feeling of how a ritual made us feel we can go back to that. And I think there’s something very compelling about this, because you’re not always going to feel great all the time. And there’s going to be times, at least for me, in my life where

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feeling bad was more consistent than feeling good. And this was happening in my past more than in my present. But if I’m starting to feel, and I have been lately, feeling like I was slipping a little into this, I don’t want to say it’s this darkness, but there’s something very different about feeling super good, and then not feeling super good. i So the opposite of of super could, is super bad. But that’s not the way I’m feeling. I am feeling that there is some kind of a shift and some kind of a change. And I’m not quite sure what I want to do with that. I also feel like I’m getting opportunities to talk to people and share my self with people in a very different way than I ever have. You know, I had this opportunity the other day to chat with a girl who has a podcast, it’s gonna come out in a couple of weeks, which case I’ll share it on my Instagram feed. And she interviewed me and that was the first time anybody had interviewed me it didn’t feel much like an interview, it felt more like a just a conversation got recorded. She’s absolutely lovely. And I was very thrilled that she and I were able to talk and we were able to talk about the things that you know, she’s younger than me, but went through much of what I felt back in those early days. And she is using her podcasts as a forum in which to share just like I am. And she has this ritual of doing her recording, she does more interviews, probably than I ever will. And I think that’s a wonderful thing for her. And it’s a wonderful thing for me to be able to be a part of. So why do we need rituals? What is the purpose of a ritual? And what are the benefits of a ritual? Well, people,

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I guess, engage in rituals with a desire to have a specific outcome, it helps actually to reduce your anxiety, I will say that I depend upon my gratitude room every morning. That’s a ritual that I’ve created

and cultivated for myself that I have come to depend upon it so much, because I know other people are going to be there. And I don’t get a lot of interaction with people in the wild. This is the way I interact with people online. You know, when I think back on my life as a young mother, and I have to find myself in this reflective moment of when things started to really fall apart for myself. I don’t think I had any rituals. I don’t think I even had any routines that I could come to count on. I actually remember not even making my bed in the morning. I make my bed every single morning and I know that’s a little thing. But a lot of people don’t a lot of people just get out of bed and go downstairs and start their day and maybe they’re good. Maybe they’re not good. I didn’t wake up every morning and put on my makeup. I didn’t do anything but I will say that when I was waking up every day and For five days of the week, my ritual was to go to LA Fitness and teach at the gym, I was in pretty good shape until I wasn’t. And I was still showing up at the gym, even when I was particularly addicted to the drugs. And before I ended up going into rehab, I think that the drugs became a ritual and an unhealthy one. So it’s important to look at some of the things we do is habits, especially for somebody who has addictive behaviors, how the ritual of something can either be super toxic, or super productive and beneficial for the body. And for the mind, I feel like there was this year in quarantine, where I had been forced to wake up in the morning and come to my desk, whether I had work or not. And you know what I did with the time when I didn’t have the work, I educated myself, I would watch people on I’ve talked about this a lot on Behance creatives, I would take online courses, I would improve my skill set, sometimes I would just go in and design something, and never do anything with it. You know what that did for me, it prepared me for when the work did eventually come, I was in a much better position, you know, in my skill set, because I took those hours out of my day not just to sit and watch a movie on Netflix, and not that there’s anything wrong with doing that. But I didn’t do that I didn’t get lazy, I gained this productivity and quarantine that I’m very, very grateful for. And if I look back on what it means to have pockets, or rituals in your day, they help you go back to something when you’re not feeling quite right. I’m thinking that that’s probably accurate. I never gave this any thought I really didn’t. Until we talked about it this morning in the gratitude space. And I have to say, there is something very valid about creating it. You know, especially when you’re somebody who’s prone to perhaps I don’t want to say mental illness, but maybe chronic depression. And again, I am not a therapist. So take this with a grain of salt, but my awareness has never been greater about how I am feeling emotionally. And what’s very interesting. And I had this conversation with my sister this morning. I just don’t feel quite right. I feel like something’s just off. And it’s not as bad as it ever used to be, trust me. And she said, you know, Mallory, because you’re aware of it, you know, that’s a big part of it. And you are not pretending that it doesn’t exist, you’re facing it, and confronting it head on. And maybe the rituals that I’ve come to rely on like the gratitude room, like the making of the bed, like the making of the cup of coffee, like whatever I do Monday through Sunday, and then the week repeats itself, is preventing me from going into that very dark tunnel in a very dark space. Because I don’t feel like I’m going there. I feel like well, I don’t feel as good as I did before. But I don’t feel as worse as I know, I could maybe it isn’t helping me to not go down that dark tunnel. I don’t want to be there again, I know that the routines that I’ve created for myself have been very meaningful. You know, I

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think about what happens when I hit 52 on this podcast, will there be a second season? And another 52 episodes? My God, I don’t I don’t know. What about the gratitude room? What happens when we hit 365 days consecutively out of 365 days? Do we start over? Or do we go to 366? I don’t know. Maybe I need to create new rituals and new ways of being mindful because I never thought much about it until today. And perhaps I’ve come to rely on them to keep me going. That’s it isn’t it? It does it keeps me going you know if you’ve got somewhere to be even if it’s online and Yes, can I run a gratitude room with others laying in bed? I sure can but do I never I get out of bed I go to my desk I open up the app that I read from and we share for 30 minutes maybe two an hour never goes longer than that and then we do it again the next day but you know I believe that it does keep me going I know that if I’m not sleeping well the night before I have to set an alarm in order to make sure that I don’t accidentally oversleep because that can happen but that is a ritual that I have come to rely on to help me start my day. Not unlike how I start my day with everything else I talked about. If you’re just laying around and you’re not doing anything that’s up to you, you You can do that I love to share that somebody else had about, you know, going for walks with their dog and making sure that their dog is experiencing playtime and running around and exercise. And they’ve come to rely on how good that feels. I also think about my father, my stepfather, you know, he’s gonna be 94. And he always had rituals of going to the gym every day. And I think that that’s why he’s still alive, you know, he’s not going to live forever. And I love him more than I could say, and you know, your body as the tires and gets old, it’s hard to keep going. Physically, it’s hard, which is why I think we need to create that space for ourselves, where we have that ritual of, I’m going to get some exercise, even if it’s a walk around the block, or you know, a run or anything else that you might do to keep your brain and your body in good shape.

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I suppose one could make the argument that if you wanted to lose weight, you know, you’d have to have a ritual of good eating and diets, and that’s why they call them I don’t know, cheat days. But I think that anytime we create a ritual for ourselves that knowingly or unknowingly, I mean, you may not even be aware of it until you think to yourself, Well, what rituals do I have that make me feel better and stronger and happier? And what can I be grateful for? I’m sure that we can all reflect on several of them that help us, we’re just not always intentionally thinking about it. I know that I haven’t always intentionally thought about it. But I will say that now that I am thinking about it, it’s a very, very positive thing. For me, you know, it’s, it’s something that I have come to rely on for happiness, it’s something that I’ve come to rely on now, to ensure that I don’t fall into that dark space. You know, I, I really don’t know where I’m going to go. This episode is hard for me to record, because I’m not sure whether it’s going to have a flow to it. I am really honest about this, because I don’t know. And if nobody listens, and has anything positive to say, that’s okay, too. I will say that, as soon as I am done doing what I do in my ritual of how I record this episode, put it on my website, put it up on bed, sprout, do the creative, add the transcripts, and all of the little details that go along with it, you know, what I feel accomplished. And that feeling of accomplishment, no matter how small is something I’m not trading? Mm hmm. And I think that there’s something wonderful about that. And we should all look at our lives. Because this episode is one of 52 that I’m looking at as a goal, right? But what’s the title of this podcast? It’s called Don’t lose your balance. And when I was talking earlier about that wonderful person who interviewed me, she asked me at the very end, what would be one piece of advice that you would give somebody so they don’t lose their balance. And I said that you’d have to be very aware and be really honest with yourself about your ugly truths, right? And when you are also feeling and I’m not sure I said this, but when you’re also feeling not, okay, bring yourself to a place of mindfulness, allow yourself to not be okay. Because you’re not always going to not be okay. And I’m a testament to that. But one of the things I didn’t even think about and I’m thinking about it now, is that one way one thing or many ways of not losing your balance can also be about creating these rituals so that you have something you can rely on even if you don’t feel like doing it, you will appreciate that you did it whether you wanted to or not. I didn’t really want to record today, but I wanted to make sure I got an episode out on Wednesday. And I know when I finish it like I said before, I’m going to feel a whole lot better because I’m starting to feel a whole lot better right now. How can that be bad that is balance that is one element of balance. So anyway, that’s all I got. You all have whoever may be listening you all have rituals that you come to rely on you can count on them and know that there’s a lot of value in those rituals for your own sense of peace well being in balance. I do I hope that for everybody. Okay, well if you like this or any other episode of Don’t lose your balance. You can download it share it, you could even write me a review. You can follow me on Instagram, I have two handles. One is Don’t lose your balance M Sc That’s Mary Sam David and the other is Mallory underscore Duric. I also have a website that’s Don’t lose your balance calm. I hope today tomorrow and always, you don’t lose your balance along your life’s journey and I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.