Natalie: Today on the show I'm speaking with Chris Attwood who talks about how including ritual in your day can actually take your life to a whole new level. So, stay tuned.

Natalie: Hi! I'm Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show and today my special guest is the awesome Mr. Chris Attwood. How are you, Chris?

Chris: I'm great Natalie especially when I'm here with you.

Natalie: I know. It's so good to see you again. Now, we've got some really exciting information to go through today on rituals which is you know something new and I know that I wouldn't say I hadn't heard of before. But what we might do is in the spirit of the show is actually go through a little bit of your background and what it is that you do.

Chris: Sure. So, a place to start, I mean the simplest place is to say that with my business partner Janet Bray Attwood and I are co-authors of The New York Times bestseller The Passion Test: The effortless path to Discovering Your Life Purpose. We've trained about twelve hundred practice facilitators in 48 countries and we felt really fortunate to be able to bring this understanding, a simple way for people to be able to connect with what really matters to them in their lives and then turn that into their life, you know actually begin to make that the way they live their life. And so, you know The Passion Test has been featured in O Magazine and Success Magazine and TV shows around the country and around the world. And we're excited now Nat because in January of 2014, our next book The Hidden Riches will be release by Harmony Books which is a division of Random House.

Natalie: Right.

Chris: And from our perspective, this book is the most important thing that we've done in our lives and it represents really what our lives have been immensely improve for over 40 years. And we've had the good fortune to spend years and years studying, learning and experiencing in aspect of this field as you mentioned called rituals that most people never get a chance to experience and we're excited now to be able to share some of that knowledge and help people understand some of the hidden aspects or secret aspects of ritual that are not so obvious.

Natalie: Yeah.

Chris: But can make a huge difference in their lives.

Natalie: I know and that's the thing about you and Janet that I love is that you know like any of the leaders that people really follow today, you are authentic in your message and you actually you know you walkie talk and you actually lived what you teach which is awesome. Now, we're talking about rituals, now which is interesting cause it's probably something that we haven't heard talked about in this poster development realm before. What's the difference between say a ritual and a habit?

Chris: Sure. It's a great question. So, we all know we have habits. We have good habits and we have bad habits you know and our good habits help us to be happier and make things go easier and our bad habits have the opposite of that, right?

Natalie: Right.

Chris: The difference between a habit and a ritual is that a ritual is taking a habit to a whole other level. It's like taking it from a sort of a good habit from a bronze medal to a gold medal you could say. But what a ritual does is it makes your habits conscious, intentional and supporting what you choose to create in your life and a simple example would be a cooking food. Most of us cook our food. Maybe some people go out all the time but most of us cook our food. And one of the things we may not realize is that the ingredients we put into the food has one effect in our body. But our feeling as we're creating the food, as we're cooking the food also has an effect on our body, in our mind and our emotions. And so, that's why I remember years ago Nat that I had a good fortune to be working on a large course where the great teacher is holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was teaching and he had a personal cook, an Indian cook who was there. And in India of course this is an age old tradition, thousands and thousands of years they have practiced ritual and I remember I was washing pots. It was a long time ago. I was washing pots in the basement of this big Swiss hotel, right. Everybody else had gone except for this little man who was Maharishi's cook. And he was there, he had this little stove ad he was there cooking the food for Maharishi and as he was cooking he was singing and he was singing his beautiful chants you know. Now, I didn't understand a word of it. But when he came up to me, you know he said "You know, you eaty, you eaty?" and I said "Oh, no, no, no" cause I don't really like Indian food you know and they used cooking Indian food. And then he said, "No, no, you eaty, you eaty" and I said "Okay." I wanna be polite, right? And so I went and I sat down and he brought me this plate of food and I don't like Indian food or I do now but I didn't at that time. I took a bite and this was most delicious food I had ever had in my entire life. Now, probably many people have had Indian food but what was special about it, of course he knew how to spiced it, of course he knew how to put the ingredients together. But I'm convinced that the biggest difference was the quality of what he was putting in, the quality of his own emotion, the quality of feeling that he was putting into the food as he was cooking. So, that's an example of how we can take everyday activities that we do and turn them into something that takes our life to a whole different level.

Natalie: Yeah. I know I actually I've heard Michael Becker say the same thing and so I've gone preparing a meal here. I'd like to put the stereo on and dance around and have you know some positive vibrations happening while I'm actually preparing the food. So, when you talk about a ritual like what does it look like? Are you talking about singing over your food or what does an actual ritual look like?

Chris: Sure. Great! So, we talked about two different types of rituals. Everyday rituals and ceremonial rituals, right. So, everyday rituals are these kind of rituals where you take something like cooking and you infuse it with some conscious activity. And the simplest thing is singing or just having your attention on what you love most at a higher risk not quite the right word but from an even more a deeper perspective we could say that you can take sacred sounds that are known to have specific effects and chant those as you're cooking the food. And those sounds are known to create a specific effect as you're doing it and these are the kinds of rituals that are passed down over from ancient traditions over long periods of time. So, but these are everyday, could be as simple as your brushing your teeth in the morning. Instead of just thinking about what you're gonna do or thinking about you know the fight you had with your husband last night. You could be brushing your teeth and appreciate your life. Be grateful for something that you have in your life.

Natalie: Yeah.

Chris: And by doing that you can take in everyday habit and everyday routine and turn it into a ritual. The other aspect is ceremonial rituals. Ceremonial rituals, you know the simplest things we're all familiar with are things like weddings, right?

Natalie: Right.

Chris: Or you know baptisms or things that that need you. These are ceremonial things and we've seen that there are 7 different aspects that involve ceremonial rituals that are common in rituals and cultures all around the world.

Natalie: Right.

Chris: And so, ceremonial rituals take more time, more effort. They require some preparation. They often require some purification, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual purification in the process. And they're specifically design to connect us with some much deeper part of ourselves with that deep spiritual realm of life that oftentimes is out of our awareness when we're just involved in our daily activities.

Natalie: Right. So, what you're talking about is not just like bundling through life mindlessly but actually being conscious of everything that we do you know and actually becoming aware of how amazing life really is.

Chris: You hitched the nail on the head with that last statement. And you know it's about to be able to appreciate in every moment the incredible magnificence of life.

Natalie: Yup.

Chris: Which oftentimes, you know all of us are busy. We're running you know. There's so many things that our to do list is so long and you know if we wanna get ahead it seems like we just have to do more and do more and go faster and go faster and take in more information and it's no wonder that we get to find ourselves exhausted you know. And oftentimes you know we feel isolated and disconnected from the people around us and part of the reason for that is because as a modern society we have gotten disconnected from ritual. Science has given us a great own in our technological advances, our ability to have a conversation like this, thousands of miles apart, right?

Natalie: Yes.

Chris: And yet on the other hand the other side of it is science has labeled the ancient practices of the traditions, the most ancient cultures around the world as myth and superstition. And the question we have to ask ourselves today "Is that really true? Or is it possible that in throwing out the death water, we threw out the baby at the same time?"

Natalie: Right.

Chris: And that's really our message these days Natalie is that that baby in fact is absolutely critical to our happiness and our fulfillment these days. And that these ancient cultures around the world weren't jus primitive and they just didn't know better and they were unevolved. But in fact they took this amazing intelligence that we have as human beings and they applied it to solve different problems than we did, right?

Natalie: Absolutely!

Chris: And so we have the opportunity today to learn from those ancient cultures and that's what Janet and I are excited about is to share some of the learnings that we've had over these many years.

Natalie: Yeah. And you're not talking about okay, completely changing everything that you do. You're talking about like adding you know like small things at a time. What does it look like to incorporate rituals into your life?

Chris: Yeah. It looks like living your life as you have already. And yet, having these little twigs that create a richness and a connection within that life that makes every part of it fun and engaging and enjoyable and I gave a couple of examples you know, brushing your teeth and just being conscious about where you're putting your attention. You know most of us brush our teeth first thing in the morning. Oh, what a great time to just reflect on what I'm grateful for.

Natalie: Yeah.

Chris: Or you know for me I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old. And when I'm at home I take my 5 year old to school to kindergarten. On the way to school, she has her word of wisdom, that's her meditation practice. And because she's too young to be able sit without running all around, she can practice it while she's doing other things. And so she sits on my shoulders and fro the first 5 minutes as we're walking to school, she's doing her word of wisdom you know. And then for the next 5 minutes cause it's a 10-minute walk. She gets to choose, does she wanna play the gratitude game or does she wanna play the appreciation game?

Natalie: Right.

Chris: And so, every day we play the appreciation game or the gratitude game and it's just part of what we have to go to school anyway, right? So, why not make it a ritual that helps to put our attention on things that bring us joy and fulfillment to life.

Natalie: Yup. And I think what you're describing is just taking a task that we would think would be just mundane and ordinary and capitalizing on that opportunity to connect to love.

Chris: That's right. You hit it. That's exactly right. You know one of the things that our passions has programs are all about is inspiring transformation through love and really incorporating ritual into your life is infusing your life with love. Its infusing your life with the ability to love, connect and appreciate every part and every aspect of love.

Natalie: Yeah. And the thing is if you're vibrating at that level and having these regular connections throughout the day then you know the people are naturally drawn to you. You know the things that anything you want to manifest is actually naturally drawn to you because your radiating and vibrating at these higher frequency.

Chris: Absolutely! Exactly! And Nat and rituals are just tools.

Natalie: Yeah.

Chris: All the rituals are. They're tools to be able to have that experience, to get to that place and the fact that these tools have existed in cultures all over the world throughout time suggests us that maybe they have some value you know. Maybe there is something there that is worth paying attention to.

Natalie: I know. So, how long have you been and Janet working on you know putting this you know this program or putting all these rituals together?

Chris: Yeah. So, it's a great question. You know to really go back to and I would say Janet and I for more than 40 years, we have immersed our lives in ritual, that's been our conscious choice. Then, you know we sort of, each of us stumbled on it in our own ways but over the years it's become more and more. And you know it's so interesting as we came to realize that we were gonna right this book and sort of where it came from Natalie is the question people always asked us when they take the passion test is "Well, now, I'm clear about my passions. How do I make them real in my life?"

Natalie: Yeah.

Chris: "You know how do I realize those passions?" And we have recommended lots of great programs, mind movies and other great programs that can help and assist people in accomplishing that. But we asked ourselves the question "What do we have to share that is unique?" That really is different than what anyone else is offering right now and we looked at our own lives and we said "Well, my god!" you know. We are lives that have been so blessed by this amazing experience of ritual. In fact our passions our certification programs Natalie. What we realize is that without even consciously doing it because this is so much a part of us, we had design those certification programs as a ceremonial ritual, the entire course through over 4 days is in fact an entire ceremonial ritual and when people come they have these deep profound experiences. And it's because of all the elements that are incorporated in that so it's been over 40 years but it's a part our DNA now.

Natalie: Yeah.

Chris: And so, it's why we're excited to be able to help people look at their lives and say "Here are the places, here are the ways that you can take." These simple but powerful conscious practices that incorporated in their life and then in addition to that, to be able to share some of these hidden aspects of ritual that may not be so obvious that come from this ancient traditions but can really add power and depth and really connectedness to the rituals that we create in our lives or experience in our lives. Yeah. So, Sunday, May 20, not Sunday. Monday, May 20 is the official release of our new mini-series called The Hidden Riches in Ritual. And the mini-series you know being and completely unbiased observer, we put it out to our own list to get feedback and frankly Natalie people are just raving about it you know. People say "My god! This is what I've been waiting for. This is what I've been looking for." And so, I'm excited that we can share this free series with everyone and for your listeners. The best way for them to check it out is go to thepassiontest.com/natalie, thepassiontest.com/natalie.

Natalie: Beautiful. And guys, if you click on the banner to the side there, you can go straight through to Chris's site. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been actually really, really empowering information and I'm really glad that you got to join me.

Chris: Thank you Nat. It's always a pleasure. I so love you and Glenn.

Natalie: Yeah, me too. Now, guys you can share this video by clicking the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons above. And there is a button on this page, just over to the side here where you can download the latest app, The Inspiration Show app which means that you can watch these shows on the go on your android, on your iPhone or on your iPad. So, make sure that you download the app so you can watch the shows on the go as well. And if you haven't done so already, put your email on the box above there so we can send you the Manifesting with the Masters Video E-Course valued $87 for free. So, guys until next time. Remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We'll see you soon.