Theresa Cheung - 21 Rituals to Change Your Life: Daily Practices to Bring Greater Inner Peace and Happines

You are what you repeatedly do.

Aristotle

A few years ago I watched an intriguing mind-game experiment on TV, hosted by the ingenious magician and hypnotist Derren Brown. A group of people were put in a room and told that the door would only be unlocked when certain clues were deciphered. The experiment began and everybody in the room focused their intention on solving the clues number sequences, flashing lights and so on but to no avail. When the allotted time for the experiment ended an announcement was made: every door unlocking clue given during the experiment had been totally meaningless and unsolvable, and the door had been unlocked within moments of the experiment starting. Nobody in the room had thought to check if the doors were actually locked. They just assumed they were. Anyone in that room could simply have opened the door and walked out at any time!

In brief, that is what this book is all about. There is an astonishingly simple way to change our lives for the better but most of us havent paid attention to it because it is so glaringly obvious. We assume life is outside our control, or we can change it by changing our thoughts, but the simplest and most effective way to make our lives better is to change what we repeatedly do every day starting today.

Most of us have absolutely no idea that what we repeatedly do creates our everyday experience. We think our future is shaped by big events, decisions we make, thoughts we have, and opinions of others, but this book will show you that it is your daily actions that are the golden key. Pay close attention to what you actually do every day and see your life transform.

Even those of us who are aware of the impact daily actions can have on our wellbeing and fulfilment, we often still dont fully understand their life-changing potential. We know that certain things, such as journaling or deep breathing, can make us feel better but we arent quite sure why. One teacher tells us to practise gratitude, another tells us to meditate, others have different approaches and recommendations, but which is right? All the advice seems so vague and disconnected and only seems to work sporadically at best. Despite our good intentions, our lives remain essentially unchanged.

However, if an action is repeated often enough it becomes a habit, although this book isnt about establishing positive habits either, as habits cant connect you to a field of infinite possibility and therefore cant change your life. To attract love, success and happiness, research shows that your daily actions need to be filled with a sense of sacred meaning and power they need to be ritualized.

If practised for a minimum of 21 days, every ritual in this book will absolutely change your life for the better. Incorporate all the rituals into your life, most of which can be performed in a matter of moments, and you will notice positive change. This book will prove to you that you are what you do. You will be left in no doubt that your daily rituals have astonishing life-changing power.

Ritual is to the internal sciences what experiment is to the external sciences.