The Power of Rituals. How to Get In the Zone.

I’ve been preparing this post for a few days now, first understanding the depth of this knowledge, digesting it myself, and then preparing the layout of the post for it to be as clear as I possibly can make it.

This, and the killer week I’ve had at school is the reason why I have not posted in so long. Hope this helps you, and the wait is worth it.

Introduction: Why are Rituals Important?

Subconscious: getting in touch with the deeper part of your personality

The principle that I want to talk about today is related with preparing yourself for the night out. Some MPUAs, as mystery did for example, suggest that getting “in the zone” or getting ready to go out and ‘sarge’, is as simple as just going to the club and doing a few warm up sets.

I believe doing warm up sets is key for a good night out, and even though I recommend you to do them, there is something else you can do, before even going out: use the power of rituals to get in touch with your subconscious, connect with your deeper side so your personality as a hole is in touch with your current reality: going out.

Many people won’t know why the fuck would you need to get in the zone to go out, but I’m an environmental engineering student, and for those like me, getting out of what I call the “numbers based mind” to the “socially intelligent mind” is not that easy. For those of us with killer weeks, any help with the “mind shift” is greatly appreciated.

First let me give you a little theory.

Our mind has many levels of depth.

The mind has what can be understood as stages, or levels. You experience this daily: are you consciously aware of everything your body is doing right now? You are breathing, processing food, using up energy, making your heart beat, etc., and all this is being done with no conscious desition being made by you at any point.

The brain has three stages, with an established hierarchy.

The first one is the instincts based brain. It’s the oldest and most powerful part of our mind. It governs all the others. It dictates the most primal aspects of your behavior, such as you eating when you are hungry, or the urge to have sex. You cannot consciously control this part of yourself, as it’s the oldest and most basic one, and it’s the one that keeps your body working.

This is why you cannot die from asphyxia just by deciding to stop breathing. When your body is out of air, it will make you breath, even against your will.

The second part of your brain is the one that governs feelings. It’s very important to

understand this part of the post, because many people deal with problems with this lconstantly. Feelings are evolutionarily developed before conscious decision making. Therefore, feelings are subjects to the instincts, but your rational mind is subjected to your feelings. This is why you will never win a battle between your feelings and your rational mind. Feelings will get stronger and will ultimately win. The only way to overcome this is to reframe your problem. That’s subject for another talk, so bear with me and I promise I’ll post about that later on.

The third part is the rational mind. The one that we humans like to think makes us different from animals. The rational mind is the weakest one, and it’s incredibly powerful so imagine how powerful the other two are. This part of your mind is the only one you have conscious power over. Were our ‘will’ rules.

Just as a side note, this is one way of understanding the workings of the brain that has helped me and I think will be valuable for you too. I’m not sure how scientifically accurate this is. Some people refear to it as the reptilian, limbic and neo-cortex brains, in that order.

So what has this to do with getting in the zone?

Connecting with ourselves as our ancestors did, and the power of ancient knowledge

To be fully in the moment, it’s important for you to be one with all those aspects of your mind I just briefly talked about.

That being said, communicating with the deeper aspects of your brain is not as simple as communicating with your rational self. By this I mean it’s easy to tell yourself that you are going out, but it’s a little harder to feel like doing so.

Your deeper self may be well off as it is hanging back, safely in your home after a hard day’s work, but you want to go out, so your will, your rational mind, has to be able to communicate with your deeper self.

This deeper self, is what psychologist call the subconscious, and communicating with the subconscious is very different from communicating to your rational mind. The subconscious works with repetition, routines and association. Think of it as the animal part of yourself. Train it as you would train a dog. This is where the power of rituals comes into play.

Reading human history, one has to ask oneself about rituals: ancient people practiced them a lot, and today organizations use them all the time. From the free masons to church to fraternities in colleges, rituals have a power that is almost mystical and we cannot understand its workings rationally, we can only learn how to use them to our benefit.

If the frats use them to create a sense of belonging, we will use them to get ready to rock the shit out of this night.

From theory to practice:

Let me give you an example, so all this can be grounded down to earth. This is my routine/ritual for going out. I’ll let you come to know a side of myself very few people know, so appreciate this because most of my closest friends don’t even know this.

The hat:

I recommend you choose an object, a piece of clothing or something, and every time you are about to go out, use this object. I personally use a Jason mraz’ style hat, therefore my nickname actually. The good thing about the hat is its not only unique, it’s on the edge of what’s socially acceptable to wear in my social circle, it makes me stand out, and most important of all, it gives me something to play with, with the girls, and in the dance floor. It also says I’m cocky and I don’t give a shit what you think, I use it because I like it and go fuck yourself with your social norms.

Also, it’s something I never wear in my day to day style, so it’s a subconscious message to my mind: you are not about to go to school, you are about to go out.

You are getting out of your ‘work self’

See the power in this?

The senses:

To communicate even better with your subconscious, I recommend you take advantage of every single one of your senses. Here’s a list of the things I do:

	What I do:
sight	I dress nice. Use my best clothes, groom up, fix my hair, go to the gym, use accessories like a watch or a necklace, and of course the hat.
hearing	This one is the most important one for me. I listen to upbeat music, I have a playlist with music from Avicii, David Getta, stuff dj’s play in the club. Invest some fucking time in your playlists, prepare a few of them. I have one for going out, one for getting out of class, etc. also, make them have like 5 hours worth of songs each, so you can listen to it without listening to the same 10 songs every time, I find it really annoying to listen to the same song over and over. Like you burn off the songs that way and after like 10 times listening to that playlist you have to throw them away and make a whole new playlist from scratch. This is why I recommend you invest a few hours in developing a good set of 5 hour music playlists. (a cheat is to download stuff like Avicii’s concert at Tomorrowland 2011, or whatever your style is) I listen to it as I’m getting ready and in the car too.
touch	Pockets are key here. I bring a pack of condoms, my wallet, my cellphone, some gum, my iPod and my car keys. Having all this with me tells me I’m about to go out big time.
smell	The key with smell is feeling clean and smelling nice. Also, using the same cologne every night you go out makes your brain associate the smell of the cologne with partying. You have probably experienced this principle before, have you ever found yourself saying this place smells like airport or this restaurant smells like Buenos Aires?
taste	Brush your teeth, feel clean and have that minty taste in your mouth. Also drinking is the most common thing to prepare yourself to go out. The taste of beer makes me remember many great nights. Gum on the other hand makes me remember those girls that had a piece of gum in their mouths when we hooked up. Fucking awesome memories.

Just as a quick conclusion:

Think about it, girls use this principle every time, why do you think they take so long to get ready? It’s fucking powerful and they know it, preparing yourself to go out is very useful.

Also as I said earlier, this is what I do. If you are just starting out you can copy it, but if you are advanced of you have been doing my ritual for a while, personalize it. Use the principles here to make it your own and it will become even more powerful.

Note that its nothing crazy, it’s just preparing yourself as normal people do. Probably the only thing that people don’t do is the hat thing, which is really an advantage for you.

I hope this helps you bro, thanks for reading.

Jason.