You Don’t Need More Willpower. You Need Better Rituals
The people who tell me they “don’t do ritual” are usually the most ritualised of all. They wake up, grab the phone, inhale the day’s anxiety like it’s oxygen, and call it “just checking messages.”
That’s a ritual.
We’re organisms. We run on rhythms. And when life gets noisy, what matters isn’t whether you have rituals—it’s whether your rituals are helping you stay coherent.
In Biotheism, ritual isn’t spiritual decoration. It’s a feedback technology: a small repeatable act that closes a loop. It brings sensation, attention, intention, and behaviour back into the same room. Not to impress the universe. To keep the system functioning.
The Biogenic Triad gives us a clean scaffold for this: self-production, self-organisation, self-correction. Morning. Midday. Evening. Not as dogma—as biology with manners.
And here’s the trick: each ritual begins the same way. You don’t “think” your way into coherence. You return to it.
The entry practice: Sensory grounding (5–4–3–2–1 + breath)
If attention is Biotheism’s form of prayer, grounding is its way of belonging.
Being grounded means returning awareness to the body as part of the living world, not separate from it. The practice is straightforward: notice five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can feel, two you can smell, and one you can taste (or imagine tasting). But beneath this simplicity lies a meaningful act of coherence: the nervous system re-connecting with its environment.
Begin by pausing wherever you are.
Take two slow breaths. Inhale as if you’re creating space. Exhale as if you’re setting something down. Then let your eyes wander around the space until you spot five small details that make this moment real: a vein on a leaf, the soft gleam on metal, the pattern of dust in sunlight, a crease in fabric, the unique shape of a shadow. Nothing grand. The small textures are the truth serum.
Now listen for four distinct sounds. Notice how they layer: traffic, wind, a distant voice, the refrigerator’s hum… and somewhere in there, your breathing again.
Then touch: three sensations on your skin: the pressure of the chair, the air on your face, and the pulse in your wrist. Recognise that you are not a floating mind; you are matter, sensing matter.
Then scent: two smells, however faint. And finally, one taste—a sip of water, a trace of salt, or the memory of fruit. The aim is not analysis; it’s reunion.
Do this before each ritual. Quiet first. Then choice.
Morning: Self-production (choose what you’re making more of)
Time: 5 minutes, plus 10–20 if you can
After grounding, ask:
“What ingredient of my life am I producing more sustainably today?”
Not “What’s my goal?” That question tends to summon grandiosity and self-punishment. I mean ingredients—things that keep a life alive:
relationships (friendship, partnership, community)
work (craft, contribution, competence, income)
hobbies / play (curiosity, skill, pleasure that isn’t purchased)
body basics (sleep, food, movement, sunlight)
inner ecology (attention, boundaries, honesty, rest)
Pick one ingredient for today. Then do a meaningful seed action—not trivial, not heroic. Something that genuinely feeds that ingredient.
Relationships: send a thoughtful message, or schedule the walk you keep “meaning to.”
Work: 20 minutes on the hardest honest task before you check anything else.
Hobbies: deliberate practice, now—not “sometime later.”
Body basics: set the first boundary that makes tonight’s sleep possible.
Inner ecology: write one paragraph titled “What I’m avoiding and why.”
Self-production isn’t hustle. It’s creation with constraints. Living systems don’t grow by wishing. They grow by allocating energy.
Midday: Self-organisation (notice what’s organising you)
Ground again. Midday is where you catch the drift before it becomes a current.
Ask:
“What’s organising me right now—priority or noise?”
Then choose one organising move:
Re-stack: the single next task that makes the rest easier. Put it on top.
Re-link: the relationship loop that needs a small stitch. Send the message.
Re-boundary: the leak. Remove, renegotiate, or postpone it.
Self-organisation is coordination without a boss. No central commander is coming to rescue your calendar. (Your phone would like that job. Don’t let it.)
Evening: Self-correction (repair without moral theatre)
Ground again. Notice how different the day looks when you’re not narrating it like a prosecutor.
Then close the loop:
What held coherence today? (Name one thing that worked.)
What frayed coherence today? (Name one pattern, not a personal insult.)
One repair move: apology, plan, boundary, clean-up, or forgiveness—something real.
One calibration sentence: “Tomorrow I will adjust by ______.”
Self-correction is how living things stay alive. It’s maintenance, not confession. It’s the difference between learning and looping.
A New Year suggestion (only if it helps)
If you’re beginning a new year, you might be tempted to dramatically change your life in a single heroic weekend. Understandable—and usually biologically unrealistic.
Try a smaller vow: pick one ritual, at a specific time of day, and do it imperfectly for two weeks. Keep what clearly helps you: steadier attention, kinder corrections, more sustainable creation of the life you truly want.
And if rituals feel like pressure, just skip them. Biotheism is decentralised. No one is judging your sacredness. Keep what helps you feel more coherent, more alive, more capable — and leave the rest.
What’s one ritual you already do—one that genuinely helps—without calling it ritual?