Cultivating Joy This Holiday Season
From the moment the angels announced the birth of Jesus with ‘good tidings of joy’, we came to see these sentiments as inseparable from Christmas. This year, Christmas brings a level of solitude most of us will not have known before. Yet joy is our birth right and even in times of uncertainty we can cultivate rituals that bring a return to self.
In the moments we take to honour our sacredness, we open to the contentment that comes from being alone and complete, while also becoming mindful of the joy we can give and receive.
Cultivating joy is like any other positive habit; it requires practice for results to accumulate. The external world remains as it is, but our world view shifts from noticing sorrow to noticing joy. I begin my day giving gratitude for waking up healthy, for feeling the comfort of fingers wrapped around a mug of hot water, for the bliss that elevates my mind in meditation, for pottering in the kitchen with our dog Star following close behind. I’ll read, go for long walks, watch the obligatory feel-good Christmas movies, drive to my mother’s house and smile at her through a glass window. While I miss hugging my mother, love cannot be shielded and I’ll take joy in any moments I have with her.
One of my greatest joys is my nightly bathing ritual. Everything we offer at Mauli Rituals has been crafted to connect mind, body and soul, because when we take care of our being as a unified whole, we begin to feel whole. We do this by formulating products with exquisite aromatherapeutic oils to soothe the mind; exceptional adaptogens to bring radiance to the skin and by using only the purest, natural and organic ingredients to balance within.
My evening ritual is a series of delicious moments of joy. From being enveloped in the invisible comfort of our pure essential oil candle, treating my body to our rich, nourishing scrub, bathing in rose quartz infused healing salts, tenderly massaging my body and skin with our personalised oils and spritzing my pillow with our sleep mist. External practices of self-care serve to connect me to my eternal nature, which is forever pure joy.
