Ritual: Maintaining Boundaries For Work/Life Balance
I’ve been working from home for a little over a month now. During this time I’ve seen any semblance of work/life balance I may have established come crashing down. It was easy to excuse this at the beginning - we were all scrambling to transition our processes and support services online. We had a short window to get it done and it was imperative we make as few mistakes as possible. I could justify working around the clock and through the weekend.
The problem is, once the “panic” ended my workday didn’t go back to normal. I know its weird to think about “normal” in an incredibly abnormal time, but I’ve increasingly come to realize how important it is that I maintain some sort of division between my work hours and my personal hours. I originally intended to write a post/ritual about boundaries that explored setting up boundaries in your craft when working with ancestral spirits but there are a lot of ways boundaries - and the violation of them - can show up in your life. So I’ve decided to adapt this post to address a different type of boundary.
After struggling for weeks trying to delineate between “work time” and “not work time” I realized I needed to create a process that helped me transition my mental state away from work. While working from home I’ve lost the decompression time of my commute which helped to put not just physical distance between me and my work, but mental distance as well. Below are a few ways I’ve found to “formalize” my transition from work to personal time while sheltering in place.
Doorways
A lot of magical practices make use of liminal spaces, such as crossroads, because they present unique aspects or energy. A liminal space can mark diverging paths, or represent more than one thing existing at a time. It can also be the point where one thing transforms into another. As such, these spaces are powerful tools in our craft. In some traditions doorways are viewed as liminal spaces. They can represent the connection between two spaces - physical and/or non-physical - such as a doorway to the underworld. They can also be the point at which someone is transformed, an initiate for a closed practice being recognized as a full member of their tradition after passing through a ceremonial gateway, for example. Doorways with functioning doors also have a unique power of their own. Being able to open or close a door can be a way we acknowledge, allow in, or banish energies into our life.
One way that I’ve found to help transition me into and out of a “work” mindset has been to be intentional about confining my working hours to a specific space in my house. I’m lucky enough to have a spare room that my husband and I have converted to an office. This is where I set up with my laptop to answer emails and attend remote meetings. Throughout the day I will enter and leave this space as needed - to use the restroom, to get snacks, to take a phone call outside so I can get some fresh air. However, at the end of the work day, I approach leaving this space in a much more intentional way.
I begin the process by bringing my awareness to closing out of any systems I was logged into. I make sure to shut down my laptop and close it. I gather anything I need to bring with me - my phone, my water bottle, any books I may be reading - and I turn and walk out of the room.
What makes it different from any other time I left the room earlier that day is I visualize myself stepping out of my work role, like a second skin I am leaving in that room to slowly dissipate. Once out of the room I very intentionally close the door.
Closing the door is a physical act that helps reinforce that I am done with the workday. I have left that aspect of myself - the employee - in that room. I have left mental state that facilitated giving my energy to others in that room, and have left with the intention to use my energy for my own personal goals and self-care. Closing the door creates a clear barrier between me and that “other self” and helps stop it from following me into the rest of my evening, and helps prevent me from slipping back into that role.
Going For A Walk, Grounding Myself
Occasionally I have found myself still fixated on things that happened during work hours while I’m trying to disconnect and pivot to enjoying leisure time or self-care. It might have been a conversation that rubbed me the wrong way, or a problem I’v yet to find a solution to, or me ruminating on something I wish I would have said. All of these take up space and sap my focus and energy. To help shake these things off I’ve taken to going outside and grounding myself. Depending on the weather I’ve been able to go on walks, but at minimum I’ll go into my backyard.
I step out into the world voicing my intention to rid myself of these intrusive fixations, to leave them far away from me and my home where they cannot follow me back. I try to keep my senses open to find a spot - a clear patch of earth, a tree - that seems receptive to helping my ground myself and release these unwanted lingerings from my work day. Some days I feel an immediate pull to somewhere close by, other days I might need to wander for a while. I’ll often take my dog for a walk at this same time so we both benefit from a little exercise.
When I find something in the earth that has expressed a willingness to help me I take time to connect with it. I do this physically, by placing my hands on the tree or on the earth. I visualize my energy body and see those fixations I’m trying to rid myself of as discolored patches. I isolate those patches and send them through my body, out of my hands, and down into the earth - either directly into the soil or through the body of whatever plant is assisting me. I give this energy to the earth to bury it deep, so deep that when I walk away it can’t crawl out and follow me home. I give this energy to the earth with the understanding it will help to settle it, to soothe it, to cleanse it and send it back into the natural cycle in whatever way is most beneficial.
I thank the earth - and whatever plant spirit - helped me with this grounding ritual. Then I quickly gather my things and purposefully walk away. I make a conscious decision not to look back. I want to be sure I leave that unwanted energy and those intrusive thoughts behind me and not allow them a chance to latch back on.
These are two techniques I’ve been using the last few weeks to help me reestablish a boundary between my work life and my personal life. Adjusting to this time of crisis has presented challenges I expected and plenty of challenges I did not expect. What I’ve found is that without establishing and maintaining a healthy division between the parts of my life I was burning the candle at both ends. I was engaging in my work life as if I had plenty of energy and focus, I was trying to enjoy my personal time without any motivation to actually do anything or focus on things that brought me joy, and my craft was suffering because I was just so totally scattered. Before I could even think about working on anything else I needed to first tend to myself and the first step was working on healthy boundaries for work/life balance.
