A while back, I talked about on stories something called a misogi. I wanted John to go over it with you because he was the one that originally introduced me, but he was too shy (insert eye roll here). This is fine because I began my own research and while I am still learning myself, I felt I needed to enlighten you with what I know so far and why I think you too, should create your own misogi.
The actual term “misogi” is translated as “water cleansing.” It is defined as a Japanese Shinto ritual of purifying oneself while standing under a freezing cold icy waterfall, in our context, this term has evolved into more loosely meaning “hard task,” in which you are to push yourself as far as you can possibly go out of your comfort zone.
But let’s back up. Essentially, we as human beings in today’s society, live a pretty comfortable life. Most of us live in comfortable homes, we have food on our tables, and we wake up everyday to a means for making money to continue living, said comfortable life. We are very rarely pushed out of our comfort zones and when we are, we fight it tooth and nail and typically complain the entire time about the unfairness of having to be uncomfortable.
Years ago, however, human beings were pushed through challenges they never knew if they would survive. They would have to hunt for food, move their families across hundreds of miles of land, survive harsh weather…they were constantly put in situations out of their known potential, yet each time they survived they were provided the confidence and tools to know they could make it and could continue living on.
This is the concept of a misogi – doing something so hard, you might actually fail in order to truly see just how far your potential can reach. If you do succeed, you might just come out on the other side with more confidence, trust in yourself, and a realization that you are capable of sooo much more you ever thought.
While I am pretty sure labor was my misogi last year, I decided this year to be intentional and set a new misogi. I will cover the rules, but linked below is an article you can start with to understand it a little more.
https://huckberry.com/journal/posts/michael-easter-misogi
If you are interested even moreeeee…you can also read The Comfort Crisis with me by Michael Easter. I am just getting started in reading this, so I know I will have even more to share moving forward.
Here are the rules if you would like set your own:
- Don’t die. Duh.
- Make it really hard – you should have a 50% chance likelihood of failure with the task
- Make it weird – Easter describes this as something that is super far out of your wheelhouse. You don’t want to be able to compare it to anything or anyone else
- Dont advertise about it – Hence why I can’t tell you mine. The reason for this is so that you are doing your misogi for you. If you are doing it for the likes, comments, etc then it’s not really for you.
Easter talks a lot about misogis being physical challenges, however you can choose something mental or spiritual, as well.
Make this what you want. I love the idea of not putting pressure on it and making it work for you and in your life with the mere concept of just getting out of you comfort zone.
If you have questions, feel free to message me on Instagram or email me or leave a comment! I can’t wait to hear if any of you also decide to do this. Mine is currently underway and so far I am thinking I may need to adjust it a little bit….we will see.
Stay tuned for a follow up post as I learn more!
xoxo,
Melissa
