Human beings have always marked time.  We pause for birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones not because they demand our attention, but because they remind us that life is moving and that we are moving with it.  These moments give shape to experience.  They allow us to step outside the flow of days and name what has been gained, what has been lost, and what still matters.

Too often though, these celebrations become routine.  The familiar gestures – the card, the cake, the dinner – can feel hollow if they are not rooted in reflection.  The calendar can demand that something is important, but the deeper meaning slips away.  In that sense, therapy and ritual share a similar purpose: both can invite us to slow down and make sense of the life we are living.

The Purpose of Gathering

In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that any meaningful event must begin with intention.  Her questions always start and are rooted in: Why are we here?  It sounds simple, but that question turns a routine event into an act of meaning-making.  Without it, we go through motions without connection.

Charles Vogl explores a similar truth in The Art of Community.  He describes how belonging is sustained through shared rituals – acts that remind people they are part of something larger than themselves.  When these practices are done with care, they become part of the structure that hold together relationships, families, or even cultures.

Both writers point toward something community organizers and therapist understand, that meaning is constructed through intention.  We may not be able to control time, but we can decide how to engage with it.

Birthdays as Reflection

Birthdays offer a natural place to practice this kind of reflection.  They ask us to consider not just how much time has passed, but how we have changed with it.  Some people greet birthdays with celebration, others with hesitation, and both responses make sense.  A birthday holds joy and grief at once.  And taking a moment to reflect can help us honor what has unfolded while also reminding us of what is finite.

In therapy, birthdays often surface as moments to consider identity.  Who am I becoming?  What have I learned?  What has surprised me about the way I’ve lived this year?  These questions move the occasion away from wearing the mask others have given and toward our own authenticity.

A personal ritual can help anchor that meaning.  Some clients choose to write a letter to their future self, sealing it until the next birthday.  Others carve out time for a quiet morning alone before the world intrudes.  The form of the ritual doesn’t technically matter.  What matters is choosing to pay attention.  When we honor our own becoming, the ritual becomes an act of acknowledgment instead of vanity.

Anniversaries and Continuity

Anniversaries ask something slightly different of us.  They are about what endures and what transforms.  Some dates on the calendar mark love and partnership, while others mark survival or loss.  If we choose to embrace them as such, each one can offer an invitation to revisit what that moment has come to mean.

In couples therapy, anniversaries can become opportunities for renewal.  Drawing on Parker’s idea of purpose, partners might use the occasion to talk about how their connection has evolved.  Instead of asking only what they did this year, therapy can help them ask what they discovered about one another or what kind of relationship they are still creating.  People don’t need a full renewing of vows ceremony to have a similar impact.  Doing it with a couple’s counselor can both provide a witness and a guide for what kind of vows will be healthy and connecting moving forward.

Not every anniversary is joyful, but even the painful ones can hold meaning.  Therapy can help individuals or families honor both the difficulty and the resilience in those moments.  What has changed since the last time we stood here?  What still needs tending?  Anniversaries remind us that time doesn’t just pass; it can teach us if we listen.

Crafting Ritual

Ronald Grimes, a scholar of ritual studies, writes that rituals do not have to be only inherited, they can also be made.  In The Craft of Ritual Studies, he invites people to build new forms/rituals/manifestations/activities that reflect their current life rather than the one they left behind.  Therapy is often about using meaning making to liberate, and using a ritual to support change means a new paradigm can begin whenever and however meaning emerges.

Therapy often helps with that creative process.  Clients can design their own ways of marking healing, renewal, or growth.  For example, the end of a therapy relationship might include a written reflection or a shared acknowledgment of progress.  Some therapists write letters to the client reflecting on the work they’ve been a witness to.  My favorite question at the end of therapy is this: “I’m going to write a book one day and each chapter will be a client’s story.  What will your chapter title be?”  For others, a simple object or phrase can become a symbol of transition.  In doing so, the client claims authority of their own story rather than waiting for someone else to define it.

Sacred in the Everyday

In The Power of Ritual, Casper ter Kuile offers another perspective.  He argues that ordinary practices (i.e., running, reading, cooking, etc.) can become sacred when approached with intention.  He notes that meaning does not depend on ceremony or location, but rather is dependent upon presence.  We’ve name now attention and intention.  In terms of ritual (and therapy), intention is about deciding you will focus your energy/attention before the event even happens.  The beauty of this nuance is that the ritual begins the moment we decide to do something, even long before we actually do it.

This approach aligns naturally with therapy.  The work of healing often involves learning to notice what is already there so we can learn to anticipate it with purpose.  A morning cup of coffee, a walk after work, or a quiet pause before sleep can become touchstones of awareness.  In that awareness, life begins to feel less fragmented and more real.  When clients begin to see their daily lives as opportunities for connection, they discover that meaning is not a distant goal but a living practice.  In that sense, ritual is life made visible.

Rituals for the Inner Life

James Hollis in Living an Examined Life, writes that meaning does not arrive by accident.  It is cultivated through reflection and courage.  He suggests that adulthood is the ongoing task of aligning our outer lives with our inner truths, and rituals can help bridge that gap.

You may have created a private ritual to mark your own inner transition:  lighting a candle on the anniversary of a loved one’s death, texting that one friend who remembers a shared moment, writing a note of forgiveness, singing a song of hope, or revisiting a place that once held pain but now holds peace.  These acts are quiet but powerful.  They signal to the psyche that something has shifted, that the past has been integrated into the present.

Therapy can help identify what these moments require.  Hollis named reflection and courage, both of which counseling can provide space for.  Regardless of the purpose, a ritual serves as marking time for closure and renewal.  And therapy can ensure the particular ritual and those you choose to share it with are aligned with your own journey of healing and growth.

Reclaiming the Ordinary

When life becomes overwhelming, rituals are often the first things to disappear.  We tell ourselves there isn’t time.  Yet these are the very moments when we most need structure.  Rituals provide orientation.  They remind us that time can be marked with intention rather than endured in haste.

Therapy can help people rediscover these anchors.  It can also offer space to grieve the rituals that have been lost – family dinners that faded, communities that dissolved, birthdays that no longer feel joyful.  From that grief, new practices can emerge.  They don’t have to resemble what came before.

Closing

Rituals and celebrations are how we translate experience into meaning.  They remind us that time is not just something to survive, but something to engage with.

• Parker helps us find purpose in gathering.
• Vogl shows how community holds that purpose over time.
• Grimes teaches us to build new forms of ritual when the old ones no longer fit.
• Ter Kuile reminds us that meaning can live in the ordinary.
• Hollis shows that these acts serve the deeper task of living an examined life.

Through therapy, we can learn to approach birthdays, anniversaries, and everyday practices with a renewed sense of intention.  These moments become less about performance and more about connection – to ourselves, to those we love, and to the unfolding shape of our lives.

Written by: Daniel Stillwell, Ph.D., LMFT

Daniel Stillwell (he/him) is the Clinical Director and a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) at the South Asheville branch of Matone Counseling. He has an LMFT in North Carolina and is a nationally credentialed (AAMFT) MFT supervisor. After receiving his masters in MFT from Louisville Seminary, he went on to earn a PhD in Family Therapy from Saint Louis University. He has practiced on and off since 2008, spending several years also as a professor of MFT for different universities. His passions for client care and organizational leadership are a great match for Matone Counseling and he has been delighted to be a part of the team since 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

References
Grimes, R. L. (2014). *The craft of ritual studies.* Oxford University Press.
Hollis, J. (2018). *Living an examined life: Wisdom for the second half of the journey.* Sounds True.
Parker, P. (2018). *The art of gathering: How we meet and why it matters.* Riverhead Books.
Ter Kuile, C. (2020). *The power of ritual: Turning everyday activities into soulful practices.* HarperOne.
Vogl, C. H. (2016). *The art of community: Seven principles for belonging.* Berrett-Koehler Publishers.