Create a New Love Ritual | LQ056

Crystal Clark: 00:00:01

Uh, welcome to our love space today. I am excited to have you here, because I am jumping into a super quirky idea with you guys today, and that is to create a new love ritual for your love space and your relationship now. Hear me out. You will actually probably be surprised to know that rituals and routines are actually amazing for our little human brains and our human bodies. And it not they give us, they provide mental health benefits as well as emotional benefits, but they also really give us a sense of community and bonding. They give us a way to connect to our values, so like the values you have in your relationship, and they also help us to mark important moments or changes in our relationships and lives. Traditionally, anthropologists actually believe that as early as six or 7 million years ago that humans start to develop their first ritual. So these early humans, they would have started rituals around the same time that they're actually developing cognition, as we think of it today, and that these were probably what we're thinking about now when we're thinking of rituals and things is we would call them threshold experiences. So a threshold experience really marks like important life event or some sort of important ceremony, like, you know, a wedding, a death, a birth, you know, becoming like a man or woman in your community or society or culture, really like a transformative process in life or in the community, where you really feel what you went from one place before the ritual, and you feel like a different, new person, older person, mature person. You've learned a life lesson. Something has happened during the ritual, and this probably not only gave them a way to process time, as in, like, Hey, you're, it's now time for you to become a man or woman, or it's now you know, you've it's now time to mark different aspects of people's life. But it probably also gave them time and space to actually process emotions around those life events and those changes, like deaths and births and becoming a man or a woman or a whatever in your community or society, right? Because it gives you, you know, it can be scary to go through those transitions in those times, and if you think about a lot of things in our culture and society, you know, we have bar mitzvahs and we have sweet sixteens and we have, you know, these different kind of coming of age, ceremonies and rituals, and that's to help us practice emotions around them, or process our emotions around them. It also gives us a chance to evoke emotions right in our community and in our society, and that helps create connecting and bonding, because now we are sharing in this process together, right? It gives you that sense of celebration or that sense of reverence as part of the process, and it also gives us a sense of control or something to focus on during the times that are difficult during our life and our community space and whatnot. So if we think of the fact of, you know, like in times of famine, or in times of like great difficulty, people will start to people will really hone in and focus in on their rituals and on processing things through that way in order to have some sense of control. Because you can't control how much rain is going to fall, but you can control how many times you do a rain coming or a rain giving ceremony, right? You can control how intense you make that ceremony. You can control what you might sacrifice, or what you might chant, or what you might do, whatever in order to evoke that rain out of the sky. You have control over all of those things, and so rituals and ceremonies help our brains and our mental health and our emotional well being, to focus on those aspects during hard times, and they also help us focus and center our energy on when we're going to celebrate things or when. You know, not all of us right, like not all of us are great at celebrating, not all of us are great at evoking and sharing emotions, right? And so for some people who are great at celebrating and sharing, you don't need all of these things that we might think of as routines and ceremonies in your regular relationships, like you might not need to celebrate your anniversaries. You might not need to celebrate Valentine's Day. You might not need these markers in your year and in your life in order to evoke emotions and to have connection with each other, but a lot of people do, and that is fine, right? You might not feel you need to have a birthday if you're being celebrated all the time, but if you're like no one that. Thinks about me or I have problems with thinking about other people. Birthdays are fantastic reminders to be like, Oh my gosh, I haven't thought about that person in a while. You know I need to do I need to think about them. Fantastic, super, great. Go for it. So that's why I'm bringing this up, because I do think that it is important to have rituals, to have times of connection, to have these things to give us that sense of communing in our relationship and and with that communing, you know, in again, traditionally, anthropologists, they will tell you that rituals create a sense of community. They create a sense of belonging, because only the people typically in that culture, in that community, at that time, get to participate in that ritual. And that makes it special, and that makes it something unto just those people. And this is what it's also going to do in your relationship. Is going having a ritual in your relationship is going to create a sense of bonding and connection and belonging just between the two of you. That's why we have weddings. That's why we have engagements, that's why we have things like that. Because these processes, these changes, these statements about how we feel about each other and what we prom how we promise to support and facilitate each other, that these are big steps in our life, and that they're actually important and they're not throw away things. And I know that marriage and having that ceremony of ritual is not for everyone, but I'm curious. I'm curious to know why, to know why it's not for you, to know why that doesn't fit in to right? And again, I like to give you the big picture idea, so maybe other ceremonies and other rituals fit into your love space, into the way your love quirks better. But you know, I am curious to know if these traditional ones that society has come up with don't fit for you. Why or why not? And then which ones are you doing that do fit for you? So my wish for you is to create a new leveraging it can be simple or it can be super evolved. Again, I like to give you the big picture idea that actually rituals and ceremonies are important our life. We all as a community and as a society and as a like a stuck in our phones kind of kind of age we're at, and everything being highly curated to us, and as losing a sense of community, that we may not get enough of these experiences just out in our everyday lives, like maybe we used to 20, 3050, 100 1000 years ago. And so if we're not getting enough of it, we're going to find ways to get some more of it in order to bring up our emotional health, our mental health, our social health, our general well being, our connection to our love of life, all of these wonderful things. So again, I like to give you the big picture. I want to encourage you to create your own thing and then color it in with the details you want. So I'm going to break down the different elements that you can have in your ritual, or some of the pieces to think about so that you can create your own so. And maybe you might decide that maybe your ritual is going to be big and it's going to be done once a year. So maybe you might connect it to something like an anniversary or a Valentine's or a time that you typically like to spend with each other, maybe a time of year you like to have a little mini break, staycation, vacation, whatever you like to do together, a special little camping trip, a special night away, I'm not sure. Or maybe you want to make it happen a few times of year. Now, probably a ritual, if it's happening once a month. Might be too much. That's probably more of our mega moment of love. But you know, for some people, you might do it. You know, every time the season changes, I'm not sure. You might have one for each season. Maybe you just have one for winter and summer. Maybe you just have one for spring and fall. I'm not sure what connection you like to have, or how often you feel you would like to do a ritual, and each you have four different ones. You know, if you're going to do one for every season, why not get super, super quirky hippy dippy with it. Why not? I love it so good. But you're going to fill in the details yourself. And you know, right? Because I wanted to give you something really quirky and fun to do. We're kind of, we're getting close. We just have about when I'm recording this, maybe 20 ish days left of our Spring Fling. So this is another great thing to do for one of your Spring Fling times, is to map this out and decide what you're going to do for your new love ritual. And this is really going to give you a quirky way to

Crystal Clark: 00:09:35

to reframe what we may have gotten tired of in society, so to reframe celebrating things like Valentine's Day or celebrating things like your anniversary and honoring your relationship, because I know a lot of times now, when I speak with couples, that there's either two ways people go about things, either we don't do that, we don't do Valentine's Day, we don't really celebrate our anniversary, we don't need to. Do that. It's like all just, you know, super commercial, or people are bossing us to do that, but we're not really taking time and putting energy to honor our relationship in another way, like making up another ritual or another ceremonial time in order to honor and celebrate our relationship, right? We're not really replacing Valentine's Day with another time of year or something that seems less commercial and our anniversary, and that's the important key that I want to encourage you here to do the other group of people I find that I talk to, the other couples I talk to are like, and this is not to put anyone out for loving Instagram, you know, I'm just gonna like, we're going for the total cliche that some some couples make it too Instagrammy, and we are only doing we like, really hype up Valentine's, really hype up our anniversary, but it's mostly just to post it on Facebook or Instagram or whatnot. It's not really about having a true moment of connection. And would we still do those things if we could not take one picture of it? Would we still do those things on Valentine's Day, our anniversary, if we weren't posting not even one thing about it. Okay, would we still be celebrating each other if I if you know, I might put like, happy anniversary on my Facebook, but have I made sure that we've done something for our anniversary? Are we having a time of connection, or am I just posting that on Facebook to to show everyone that we've gone on for another year? And these are all my nice thoughts, but we haven't actually shared those nice thoughts with each other. That is the important key, because neither of the ends of that spectrum really serve us right. For sure, we want, we don't want to do anything because we're just going through the motions of, like it's Valentine's Day. We have to do something, but we also, yeah, we also don't want to just be doing stuff for face value, right? For window dressing, as they would say in the old timey saying. So what we want is we don't want any of these, all or nothing, things. We want to have real moments of human connection that are going to develop us, that are going to support us, that are going to carry our love through with each other and keep it sparked. So number one to think about in your ritual is actions, right? So one of the parts of thinking about your actions in a traditional ritual, they are thinking of gestures, words, behaviors that you're going to be doing during the actual ritual. Now I'm thinking when I'm thinking of this, you know, I'm thinking of your day out for your anniversary or, you know, like a little mini weekend break, vacation away. So it's not as confined as hey, we're doing this ritual, and it's two hours longer, it's three hours long, it's four hours long, like a wedding, and it has certain parts and certain pieces. It could be like that, but don't, but you can make it like this. Is our whole weekend long thing. So maybe the gestures and the words may there might not be as many of those is mostly maybe going to be about behaviors and things like that. But I also want you to think of what your core values are as a couple, and where you can incorporate or highlight some of those values. So again, if your core values are you know being active, or are humor or are compassion, where can you fit those in? Right? If your core values are compassion or are justice, I don't know, go make part of your ritual a protest, I'm not sure. Go make part of your ritual a volunteer experience somewhere, right? Go bring your values in to your ritual, if possible. If you need some creative ideas, you know, DM me be like, Hey, these are our core values. I need some ideas on how to incorporate it. I will, for sure, help you brainstorm with that. Also brainstorm with the love of your life as well. And probably behaviors, you know, well, actually, so definitely behaviors, right? And our behaviors are going to be things like, what are we going to do with each other? How are we going to spend this time together, right? Like, that's really the big outline. But for words, a fun idea, I thought for words, and this is what I like, what me and my LOL, love to do when we are going on just a vacation, the two of us, is we love to play. There's like, a vacation song. I want to say it's from the it's by the go, Go's from, like, the 80s, such as we'll do that, or we'll do Madonna's holiday, and we'll, we'll put put it on full blast, either when we're still in the house and we're like, packing up all the luggage into the car, or we'll put it it right when we get into the car truck and going on a road trip or driving to the airport, and we'll blast it, and we'll sing along. And that's kind of the start of our vacation time, right? It starts right at that moment, as soon as we start hearing that song. And that's our little list ritual for around vacations. It's just a baby, Mini, tiny ritual, but you can do whatever you want, like maybe you're always going to listen to the same song. Maybe when you met, you had an awesome first slow dance together. And so that's going to be a behavior, that's going to be a gesture that you're going to incorporate sometime during your ritual, right? Even if your ritual is at home, you can dance the living room. You know me, I love to dance in the kitchen. Who are the actors going to be? So again, that's traditional part of a ritual. Well, of course it's going to be the two of you. So check covered the place, right? Are you doing this home? Are you going. On vacation. Are you going outside somewhere? Are you very outdoorsy, and it's going to be a hike? Where is the place that you're going to do it? What is the timing you're going to do it? So what time of year? How long will it last? Will be the same time every year, or every year? Will you kind of pick a new time to do this ritual, or a new place to do this ritual? I'm not sure, but you can incorporate that as well. What kind of objects? What sort of special objects will you have? Now, you know me and my Oll. We love, as I always talk about food and drinks on here, we love to put things in our mouth and let it release the dopamine. So, you know, we often always have like, Hey, we're going to go for a special cocktail, or we've brought things to make a special cocktail, or we've brought a special bottle of wine to pair with whatever we're eating for dinner that night, or whatever we have brought for our staycation. So you know that is very important to us, and that food, drink piece is almost always a part of our love rituals, you can't get me out of it. Sometimes my all, I was like, maybe we don't need to go out for food, or we don't need to bring, you know, have a cocktail. And I go, No, no, we must. But that's just me and that I get stuck on that point. But you could also have something fun, like, is there certain jewelry that we have given each other, certain gifts we've given each other, certain you know, if, if your ritual is going to be some sort of holiday outing together every year, do you always have you made ugly Christmas sweaters for each other, and that is one of the objects that you must adorn yourself with a dream this new love ritual. I'm not sure. Are you going to dress up in matching outfits? Oh, I love a good matching outfit. Personally, it's not for everyone, but I love it. You know, are you guys going to get something for your ritual? We'll get to the sexual intimacy part in a moment. But does that part need to have some ritual pieces to it, some things that you're going to wear, some things that you're going to say or do. The next thing is language. And again, are you going What are you going to do for your words, and how are you going to express to each other your connection and your joy and your whatnot for each other? So will you read each other a poem? Will you do your vows again with each other, just the two of you, right alone in a hotel room, all comfy up in bed having a morning coffee together. Will you wake up and be like it's time for us to renew this just between you and me? Or will you write new vows to each other? Or will you just talk about your favorite moments from since you've done the last ritual, or since you've had the last you know the past year? What? What kind of words and things are you going to share with each other during your ritual? Maybe you're going to have, like, a super quirky where you can't use words only sign language and communicate with each other in that way. I would love that. I think that would actually be so fun. That's probably only something I would love. Since I'm doing I'm a relationship coach, I like doing all the hard work. Um, yeah, probably most people be like, no, because that's a bit too quirky. There you go. And our last thing, yep, and our last thing that I want us to think about is, how are we incorporating our intimacy and our affection with each other? So this isn't a traditional ritual piece that we need to think about. But I think for your new love ritual. This is very important. How are you going to connect your bodies with each other during this ritual time? And how are you going to connect your affection for each other? So again, are we honing in on our love languages? What are we doing for each other that helps us feel loved by the other person, and how do we express our love back to the other person during this ritual? The other piece is that you know, what are we going to do for our sexual touch? There should be, there should be

Crystal Clark: 00:19:19

some excitement and positive emotions towards physically connecting with each other, both sexually and non and I know that there's a spectrum between how much people like to be touched and whether people are snugglers or not snugglers. And what you know, where everyone lies on the spectrum for those things, but there should be some positive excitement for that physical connection, both sexual and non sexual, and if there's not, then you need to look into that some more. You need to think about that so that you can really create a love ritual that's going to level up the connection between the two of you. Right? You're wanting to really hone in if there is a disconnect for. Your physical connection and affection towards each other, whether it's sexual or non sexual, both. Who knows that that needs to be explored, that needs to be opened up a little bit, that vulnerability needs to be sussed out, because that's going to really affect your ritual. Now you can try the ritual, and you can see, hey, did doing this whole process actually these tweaks actually help support some of those feelings, some of those positive feelings around physically connecting with each other, and that's actually helped. And now we're and now it's actually getting easier to do those things, or do we try the ritual? And it was all super awkward and horrible when we got to that physical part, if it is that's something that needs to be explored totally separately, because that, as we know, as we've talked about many times on here, is going to be affecting all of the parts of your love space if you're not physically connecting with each other. So yeah, so you want to create a ritual. I want you to create a ritual. I know you want to create a new love ritual for your love space that is going to give you that increased sense of communing between the two of you. That's going to create that increased sense of excitement, that increased sense of grounding, right and creating a new love ritual, or tweaking an old one that's maybe fallen by the wayside, that is what is really going to keep you

Unknown: 00:21:27

sparked. I'm.