Have you ever considered your rituals? The things you do repetitiously, over and over, again and again?

         Rituals are procedural, systematically organized, often obsessively thought out. They can be instinctive rather than planned. They are similar to a ceremony, a set of chronological steps. Rituals are habitual, persistently addictive, attempting to give a sense of order. They come from a set of beliefs, are based on trial and error, or customs and traditions. Rituals are methodically [carefully, and meticulously] regulated. They are a form of control.

         There are rituals with addictions:  how one prepares, uses and recovers from the addiction’s effects. Take tobacco for instance. Have you ever noticed that you must buy a specific brand? When you light up how you remove, handle and light the cigarette? Do you ever notice when you smoke, the circumstances, the situations that prompt lighting up? Such as, when on the phone, driving a car, after eating, waking up, around others, or stressed?

         There are the progressive rituals of pornography:  the secret life of procuring, and using; the ritualistic ways one readies themselves for use and participation with the porn; relentlessly growing compulsions to increase use; deeper and deeper involvement with varying types; uncontrollable desires to draw another or others in; justifying and/or defending when challenged or caught?

         Rituals can be a form of personal control:  hand washing or showering, checking doors or windows, locks and window coverings. Personal rituals can include regular withdrawal and isolation, hiding from others. There are rituals when leaving the house, picking up the mail, walking the dog. Personal rituals include controlling one’s surroundings, such as: cleaning involving a specific [an exact and particular detailed] set of sequential steps; or perfectionism, compulsively perfecting personal hygiene, hair and dress must be just so before leaving the house; or compulsively having to put everything in order before doing the next thing, “I must do…before I can do…” There is clock watching and timed rituals, sleeping and eating rituals.

         There are rituals for mutilating or cutting one’s body: procuring, hiding, and carrying the cutting instrument; the planning and finding a place to cut; the preparation to cut, to feel the cut, to watch the cutting; and, to cover and hide the cuts.

         A ritual may seem normal, familiar and comfortable, because of its expected outcome. Performing the ritual, manipulating and influencing the environment, the milieu [situation and location], gives a temporary sense of control over personal thoughts and feelings. The rules of the ritual give predictability, a personal sense of power. The ritual’s organization produces manageability, a sense of inner security. Rituals must be performed over and over again to maintain temporary power and security. The use of rituals is the attempt to dominate [govern, dictate], suppress [hold back, restrain, bottle up], and oppress [keep down, afflict, tyrannize] inner fears, anxieties, suspicions, phobias, and panic.

          The Bible indicates in Luke 4.13, that satan steps back and waits for……

‘until a more opportune and favorable time’

……satan wants to tempt to you to stay, or return to your cycle. he then will attach one of his army workers to keep you in your cycle. But, Jesus came defeating satan, and wants to set you free from your controlling rituals. Christ will give you the power to overcome the ritual. All you have to do is:

Keep on asking and it will be given you;

keep on seeking and you will find;

keep on knocking and will be opened to you.

For everyone who keeps on asking receives;

and he who keeps on seeking finds;

and to him who keeps on knocking will be opened.

Matthew 7.7-8[Amp.]

         Now read and mediate, in the Bible, on the letter written to some people who lived in a place called Galatia. This book, as we call it, is a letter telling people how to be free from controls (legalism or rituals). The writer writes in Galatians 2.18-21:

“I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work.

So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man…

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping,

peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free

in my relationship with God?

I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s Grace. [Mess.]        

          Rituals fail!! They control you by causing worry, exhaustion, depression, despondency, increasing your anxieties. They stem from trauma:  childhood types of abuse, rape, abduction, slavery, accidents, weather (hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, floods, snow slides, etc.), war, crime, terrorism, and the like. The root or origin must be treated to overcome. First…  

         The Practical:  First, take the least controlling ritual you perform, like having to make the bed before you leave the house. Decide to spend ten days not making your bed. Your mind will obsess and condemn you. Your body will compulsively want to turn into your bedroom and make the bed. Verbally, out loud, tell yourself, ‘it is my choice I chose to not make the bed today. It is not important for today.” This does not mean you are being irresponsible. It does mean you are responsibility taking control of an obsessive/compulsive ritual task. Eventually, the mental obsession reduces and recedes. The compulsion to make the bed weakens and disappears. Now you are ready to make your own decision. Ask yourself, “Is it important for me to make the bed everyday? How would I like the bed to look without being obsessively compulsive about it?” Now you are ready to explore alternatives and options that give you freedom of choice. Now try another ritual, giving it ten days. Then rethink it, make your own decision as to how you would like to handle this task in the future. Some rituals may take thirty days or more to overcome. Be consistent, but don’t choose to tackle a ritual that is so controlling it dominates you. Without it you are consumed with anxieties and panic.