PODCAST: Why ritual is so important to us and how to bring it back into our lives

I am so excited for you to listen into today’s podcast, because this week I got to interview the wonderful Tiu de Haan - a celebrant, writer and full-time inspiration when it comes to weaving ritual simply, but powerfully, into your life.

We first came across Tiu a few months back when we watched her TED Talk ‘Why ritual is still important’. I was so inspired and moved by what she was saying that I tracked her down and sent her an email saying ‘you’re amazing, can I interview you for Project Love pleeeeease?!’ and a few weeks later we were sitting in her flat in north London getting deep into conversation.

We talked about everything from why ritual is so important to us as humans, to what it was like marrying a woman to herself, how we can create simple rituals for ourselves in our own lives and the difference it can make when we do that…

I loved every minute of it and found that the more you hear Tiu talking about ritual and the power of it, the more you realise how important it is for all of us to get ritual back into our lives.

So download it here and as you walk to work, cook your dinner or get ready for bed, hit play, have a listen in and then come back here and let us know what you thought.

x Selina

P.S. For more Tiu wisdom and love, check out her TED Talk 'Why we still need ritual', her posts on ritual for Huff Post (she is a wonderful writer with a book on its way) and of course her website.

From not enough to thank you very much

We've all been there. Incredibly overwhelmed by that lurking feeling of not being enough.

"I'm not liked enough", "I'm not loved enough", "I'm not popular enough", "I'm not thin enough", "I'm not asked out enough", "I'm not promoted enough at work"....

You get the picture, you feel that something is lacking.

Leo Babauta of the fabulous Zen Habits, asked his Twitter friends “What fear is holding you back?”. Their responses included:

• Failure
• Abandonment / Rejection
• Intimacy
• Success
• Being broke
• Not being good enough

According to Leo, the fear of not being enough is actually at the root of all the others. And we tend to agree with him.

We're living in a culture of scarcity, focusing on what we lack rather than what we have.

In her book, "Daring Greatly", Brene Brown shows the extent of this on a daily basis. We start our morning thinking that we didn’t get enough sleep, we go through our day worrying about how little time we have to get everything done and then we fall asleep feeling anxious that we failed to tick everything off our to do lists. And it goes on and on.

What if we could wake up and go to sleep with a feeling of gratitide instead? Well we're starting just that with a 30 day gratitude exercise. The Gratitude Journal App is designed to make gratitide a habit, which is perfect because we love our habits.

Basically, you write down 5 things that you're grateful for each day to train your brain to be happier, By practicing awareness of the things we're thankful for (the good stuff), we fight off the brain’s natural tendency to spot the bad stuff. As a result, we train our brains to be more positive and thus happier.

Give it a go and let us know how you get on!

V x