Rituals of Renewal: Everyday Restorative Practices for Modern Life

What if you stopped waiting for the perfect retreat and made renewal a daily habit? We dive into a month of “rituals of restoration,” sharing simple, meaningful practices that fit real life—so you can feel grounded, creative, and clear without adding more noise to your calendar. From morning to night, we map out small, repeatable steps that shift your nervous system, brighten your mood, and help you show up with intention.

We start with the power of the morning theta window—those first minutes after waking—where five minutes of meditation sets a calm baseline for the day. Add gentle movement to open the ribs and spine, step outside for natural light to sync your circadian rhythm, and turn your coffee or matcha into a sensory ceremony. For tactile folks, we explore mindful skincare, gua sha for lymph and sinus relief, and the quiet pleasure of an ice roller as a mini-reset. Then we introduce habit stacking, the science-backed way to attach new rituals to things you already do, so consistency becomes easy instead of aspirational.

Midday, we bring restoration into the messy middle: a five to ten minute walk after lunch, a grounding breath sequence between meetings, or a quick step outdoors to touch a tree and widen your attention. At night, we close loops with candle intentions, brain-dump journaling to quiet racing thoughts, a page of gratitude to rewire focus, and a simple protection practice for deeper rest. As you drift, use vivid visualization to prime your mind for the goals you’re calling in. Throughout, we lean into cozy seasonal cues—blankets, warm light, changing leaves—to treat ordinary moments as sacred, aligning with autumn’s invitation to slow down.

If you’re ready to replace hustle with steady nourishment, this conversation offers practical tools and gentle encouragement you can use today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a quick review telling us the one ritual you’re starting this week.

Listener Reflection Questions:

1. What small daily rituals already bring me comfort and restoration?
2. How can I infuse more intention into the “ordinary” parts of my day (morning, meals, evenings)?
3. What does cozy-as-ceremony mean to me personally?
4. What daily ritual of restoration will I carry with me beyond October?

Thanks for listening to The ModernZen Collective Podcast.

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Chapters

• 0:13 Welcome to Modern Zen Collective
• 1:21 October Theme: Rituals of Restoration
• 2:26 Why Micro-Rituals Matter
• 4:08 Retreats vs Daily Renewal
• 7:18 Morning Rituals: Meditation, Movement, Coffee
• 11:42 Intentional Coffee & Breathwork
• 14:02 Skin, Tools, and Sensory Care
• 16:25 Habit Stacking for Consistency
• 18:15 Midday Grounding: Walks & Pauses
• 20:24 Evening Wind-Down: Candles & Journaling
• 23:05 Gratitude, Protection, and Manifesting
• 26:00 Make Ordinary Moments Sacred
• 27:35 Seasonal Energy and Closing
• 28:31 Outro & Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Hi, I'm Lizzie. And I'm Nikki. Have you ever felt that your life was missing purpose, joy, or deep connection? Welcome to the Modern Zen Collective Podcast, where we embrace holistic living for a joyful, purpose-driven life.

SPEAKER_01: 0:29

And this podcast will explore holistic practices, conscious expansion, and spiritual alignment. We will guide into personal development, practices that connect mind, body, spirit, and share secrets that ancient cultures have known a century. Together we aim to guide, educate, and connect individuals eager to transform their lives.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

Join us weekly on the Modern Zen Collective podcast and elevate your mind, body, and spirit. And now on to today's episode. An invitation to slow down, replenish, and honor the rhythms of the season. In a world that glorifies hustle, we're choosing to rest, we're choosing to reflect, and we're choosing to restore. And we're inviting you to join us. All month long, we'll explore the many ways restoration shows up, from reclaiming rest as resistance to reimagining self-care with our special guest and practitioner collective member Marnie Heinz, to navigating the sacred space of late October when the veil between worlds feels thin, and finally weaving renewal into the everyday rituals of your life. Alongside these conversations, we'll also guide you through cozy practices like meditation and yoga nitra to help you embody restoration in real time. So grab your blanket, light a candle, and join us for this month of rituals of restoration. Let's restore together. Nikki and Lizzie here with you again today to talk about another part of our October theme of rest, rituals of renewal. We're going to be talking about everyday restorative practices for modern life today, because we're all about bringing all these great things into the modern life because that's where we live. That's where we live.

SPEAKER_01: 2:47

Yes. And that's what we build our business on. We are all about having that holistic everyday practices for modern life. It's here. We're so excited to have you here with us doing these rituals that Lizzie and I are big on. We love. And yes, we are human. So we don't do these all the time, but we do come back to them and we do try and make it habits when we can. I know I can feel when I fall off a practice of not having my ritual and what that feels like for me. So, you know, small rituals, it's the little things that set the tone for your long-term well-being. Because before you know it, we all know time's moving so fast right now, just in general. But you can blink your eyes and it's three years down the road, and you've been, you know, in the same vibe, same energy, but also doing the same routine and what that looks like for you. Um, and maybe that routine wasn't super beneficial for you, um, but maybe it was. So there's two paths, right? That you can kind of have that long-term well-being, or you can have a path of not feeling your best, but you know, not really knowing why, but not having those rituals for rest and for supporting yourself that can go along with it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

I think, you know, I don't know if any of you guys started in the productivity side of quote unquote self-help before moving over to working on your spiritual side. But I did, and I used to listen to Darren Hardy all the time, who's all about productivity and efficiency and focused time, learning how to refocus. And his book, The Compound Effect, is all about this getting 1% better every day. And at the beginning of his book, this just totally popped in my how to it's such a profound realization. At the beginning of his book, he talks about two men. Well, one's we'll call him Stan and Bob. And um, every day, all so they're both the same, exact same, same in the exact same way, live right next to each other, do all the same things, whatever. One day, Stan decides to eat an extra brownie a night for dinner, for dessert. And Bob decides to go on a walk every night before or after dinner instead. So they choose two small things. Maybe that walk is not very long, but they choose two small things. One is eating another dessert, which we all know isn't very good for us, and the other is walking, which is good for us. And he kind of does this fast forward a year, see where they are. Oh, fast forward five years, see where they are. And I think it really shows that these small things that we choose for ourselves have this huge ripple effect down the line. And you know, it's all about choosing to be 1% better every day. So it's like, even if it's 0.0001, it's just doing one thing every day to make ourselves better that day than we were the before because that compounds over time. Consistency compounds over time. Small things, small rituals, they turn into long-term whole body wellness and well-being. So it's so interesting because, you know, I've actually never been on a really fancy retreat, wellness retreat. I've been on retreats, but not really a full wellness retreat where that's what it was all about. And I would love to go on one. I would love to go on one every year. I would love to go on one every quarter. I would like to go on one all the time, all over the world. But realistically, for me, that's not something that's in my sphere in this moment in time. And so I think why I'm so excited about this episode and being able to offer you some rituals, some small rituals, is that this is really about these tiny consistent practices to create restoration, renewal every single day so that we're not just blowing and going through our lives, waiting till we are able to take that vacation, waiting till we're able to go on that wellness retreat, waiting till we're able to go away for a whole weekend. No, it's about you have the power to do this for yourself every single day in the small moments, in the small decisions. So we're going to give you some rituals for the morning, for midday, for evening, so that you can really have some tangible things that you can try. Some of them will take a few minutes, some of them will take 10 minutes. It's all up to you to decide what fits best into your life and what sounds interesting to you. Follow your excitement. What peaks your excitement as we speak about these rituals, because that's the one that you should try first. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 7:46

Yeah, and Lizzie, it totally what you were saying resonates so much about having these micro practices, micro practices, micro, uh just micro things that you do every single day, and how they add up, just micro, micro habits that you do every single day that add up, and how beautiful it would be just to integrate and start to add some that really, you know, fill your cup, make you happy, help you with your wellness, even your holistic wellness, your well-being, your mental health, your mental clarity, all of that. Uh, so we we have some for you for beginning of the day, middle of the day, and the evening. Uh, something that I love. I love mornings. I'm a morning person. I love mornings. I did not used to be a morning person. I was definitely the one who was late for everything, would rather have my sleep rather than, you know, go ahead and have extra space. And that changed once I started on my journey of um working on myself and my holistic living, et cetera. And I've really come to value the quiet and the peace in the morning. And things that I love to do in the morning, I love closing my eyes and meditating when I'm still in that theta state. I truly feel that I have just this downloadable program happening while I'm in that state. I feel completely at ease. I feel connected to source, to the universe, and I feel like I'm one foot in, one foot out after coming out of sleep because you truly are. You, your soul is traveling the whole time you are sleeping. And that's something I really love doing, whether it's five minutes or whether it's 15 minutes, some, you know, I don't put a timing on it. I just start and do it. And it's something that I truly, truly love. Um, and that goes along with, you know, movement. I love moving and stretching. And I can feel a difference in my body after I sleep. If I wake up, like our body naturally stretches. When since you were little, you got out of bed and you stretched, you were a baby and you stretch. Like that's what we are supposed to do because we sleep so compact and we're all like, you know, we go back to the womb and we sleep. We're in this ball or whatever, however, we sleep. And when we open and we wake up, we expand. So something that I do as well is have this big stretch moment where side leans breathe side to side, breathing into your my side body for my lungs, that area that I wasn't breathing in while I was sleeping, doing spinal twists, maybe some ups and downs, like some sun salutations, and a walk. I truly love a morning walk. Like a morning walk, getting sunlight in my eyes, as Andrew Huberman talks about. It I resets your circadian rhythm, does so much for you. Do it without sunglasses on. Like those are like my go-tos, and I'm still human. So I love a little bit of coffee or matcha in the morning after I have my water. Like that ceremony of making my coffee at home and having my maple syrup and having my whole milk and putting it together or whatever it is, that gives me so much bliss in my routine and having a little bit of my um my uh chaga powder in it and things like that that I really enjoy creating my breakfast, like my little something that I have in the morning.

SPEAKER_00: 11:09

Yeah, it's so funny when you were talking about all the things you do in the morning. I was thinking, oh, coffee, my coffee routine. I was like, oh, my coffee routine, it sounds so great. And I think it can't, it's it can be as simple as that because the whole deal is what is something that you really enjoy doing that makes you feel restful, that makes you feel present, that we're getting into October and the fall that's nice and cozy right now. And that could be your morning cup of coffee, your morning cup of tea, your morning matcha, whatever it is. And maybe in the morning, this time you can have a little more intention around that time. Maybe you sit in a start to sit in a specific chair facing outside or in a special room to you, in a special place that allows you to feel restful. Maybe you bring a little book, something that you're trying to learn, or maybe it's for pleasure. Maybe you bring your journal and you write a few things down, or look at your calendar for the day and decide the top three things that you want to get done that day. Maybe you just decide to start your day with a little more intention around your morning coffee. And it can be as simple as that, or it can be all these other wonderful things that Nikki talked about. Um, especially another thing you could try for breath work is the breath of fire. And if you're not familiar with that, the breath of fire really like gets you going for the day. It's almost like a cup of coffee. It switches you from the parasympathetic into your sympathetic nervous system and gets you going. So if you're interested in breath of fire practice, you can try that in the morning as well. But I love everything that Nikki said. I wish I did more of those things, but for me right now it's two kiddos.

SPEAKER_01: 13:01

A little different.

SPEAKER_00: 13:02

Yeah, it's it's the face, honestly, it's the face routine in the morning, like washing my face in the morning and putting on certain creams that smell good and things like that, taking the time to rub my neck. And um, I've started incorporating a little bit of facial cupping in in the morning. Um, so that really that and the coffee, but I really like the idea of adding a little more intention to the coffee in the morning instead of just making the coffee and drinking it as I walk around. I I like the idea of sitting down and and getting a more little more intentional with that because I've gotten away from that for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 13:36

Yeah, like having it be like a ceremony, like just like enjoying that ceremonial aspect of making the coffee and smelling the like all your senses, right? Holding the warm cup or the cold cup and all of the things that go along with it. And that's something else you that you just mentioned, like the facial cupping, etc. I use my um ice roller in the morning and I use my goua in the morning. So I I love doing that too. I also feel like the gasha really helps with my sinuses, especially living up here in Illinois and how bad allergies have been. The gasha really helps to open up my sinuses and it helps me to feel like I'm sculpting my face, but also helping that pressure. So something else, you know, just a little things we can do. Um, and that takes me no more than a few minutes just to do that. If I have if I want to be more indulgent, yeah, I'll do some face oils and I'll do it for a while. But in the morning, I just do it with my usual routine and and um just have that as part of, you know, once I start to get up and going for sure. I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 14:41

What about you know, like like what you're kind of talking about, like habit stacking? It's we're kind of talking about that a little bit here. It's so it's like choose a few of these and maybe stack them one after another. And is there a triggering thing, a triggering habit that you already have that will get you to think about doing this new habit and then stack a few of them in a row? Because, you know, that's really the important thing is finding the one thing that you can do that will trigger you to want to do the rest of the things. It's like that waterfall effect, you know, having the one habit, whatever Nikki does first. She does this one thing in her face routine and then it triggers the other six things that she does before she leaves the mirror. And so trying maybe switching the order of the things you're trying to do if it's not working right away. Um, but thinking about it in that way too, habit stacking. It's that's exactly what we're talking about here. And what can you do that'll trigger the rest so that so that they just happen. So you don't have to try to choose. You've already made the decision you're gonna do it, you put it in the order it's in, and then it just happens. And I think that's gonna be important for a midday, a midday practice because you're going to be blowing and going. You're gonna be in the middle of the day, you're gonna be on mommy duty, on daddy duty, or in in the office, like blowing and going, or out and about meeting customers, going to do drop-offs, pickups, all sorts of different things. So having like a grounding pause in the middle of the day can be so awesome, but also so hard to do. So I think if there is something that you do on a regular basis, like maybe you pick up the kids at one, or you drop them off at one, or you finish lunch at one or something. I'm just saying this because I feel like for me, there's something around the middle of the day. I can always be just be finishing or just about to start. Is there a time like that for you where you could add something right before you start the thing, or right after you finish the thing? That is a good grounding pause. Maybe it's some movement, maybe it's a little bit of stretching, maybe it's going outside and standing on the grass for a moment, or going and or taking your kids and sitting outside and having time, quiet time outside, or a play activity outside, like moving you somewhere where you're able to feel more rested. Is there something that you're doing that you can put this before or after? And I would say that's the biggest thing to try and get this as something consistent you do in the middle of the day.

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

Yeah. Oh, I love the habit stacking because that that is just such a light bulb that you said that, because that really triggers us to know when I do this, I'm doing this. And it starts to be re- a reprogramming our brain that this is what we do in the morning. It's almost second nature. Like I grab for my um my gasha, or I go and do my breath work, or I grab my journal. And even like Lizzie's saying, like the midday, the midday doing the habit stacking for midday is something that's really going to benefit you because midday can get crazy, especially if you're a parent, um, or if you have that full-time job, even if you're remote, like midday can be crazy town. Um, so having that that time around something else to have this micro practice, this everyday ritual for yourself. Maybe it's just stretching. Maybe stretching in the morning isn't for you. Maybe it's a nice stretch, maybe it's a little walk, um, maybe it's a walk after lunch. You know, anything like that could really be part of this ritual to really feed your soul and help you.

SPEAKER_00: 18:23

Yeah, I love that. Especially the walk. I think that might be even one of the easiest things to do is just after you're done eating, go for a short walk. And you then you can even continue the conversation you're having with whomever you're eating lunch with, or call someone you haven't talked to, or just be in silence. You know, I like I like that a lot, a lot. And then, you know, moving on to the evening, our wind down, our time to relax, our time to rest. We're trying to get to bed, we're trying to wind down for bed. It can be hard because there's also a lot of things going on at night. I mean, we all have a lot of things going on at all times during the day. Everything's happening. Who are we getting? Who are we getting? But at night, at night, it can be so hard sometimes, especially when your kids aren't on regular bedtime, or you have different obligations that you have at different days of the week, and you feel like you're getting home at different times and you don't really have a lot of time before you go to bed. So small rituals could be something as simple as lighting a candle and saying a prayer, speaking an intention, saying an affirmation out loud, whatever that looks like to you, lighting a candle, connecting with the divine in such a simple but elegant way. Light the candle and speak whatever you want to speak and then blow it out then or before bed. I mean, that can take no time. You could do that, or you could go all the way to journaling. And journaling can be I feel like there's no quick way to journal. Once you start journaling, it ends up just getting word vomit all over the page, and it takes a while or until your hand cramps up and you're like, oh, I'm dying. So journaling, I don't know if you can set you could set a timer for that, but I feel like journaling is a much longer practice at night. But I find journaling to be the best solution to an overactive mind. If you're one of those people that lays down in bed and your body's exhausted and you can't fall asleep because your mind's running and running and it's going over all the things and all this and all that, journaling is your best friend. I promise taking a moment to journal for 10 minutes before you go to bed and just like brain dumping everything out there, even making lists of things you need to do or thing, whatever it is, things you're grateful for, whatever. Just dump everything in your journal and it will help you so much fall asleep. And the other thing that I love to do, and I think this is part of Rhonda Burns magic, part of her um was it her, or it might have been, I don't know. It's not, it wasn't her. It wasn't her, actually. I'm sorry, I'm kidding. It was John Maxwell. One of the things that he recommends doing is before bed. The last thing you think about is the best thing from your day. So you're going through all of these great things of from your day. And what he says you have to do is you have to list, you go through your whole day and you think about what you did that entire day, and then you pick the best thing. And so what it forced you to do is think about all the great things that happen during the day, and then you're picking the best one. So you're going to bed with gratitude, and you've already mind-dumped everything out. So, like for me, those are the best rituals for me to help me rest and renew, you know. And uh, and it can be a simple one or it can be a little bit more intricate. What do you what do you suggest, Nikki? What do you love to do in the evening?

SPEAKER_01: 21:58

I yeah, all of those are so fantastic. I I agree with the journaling. I think our overactive mind is so wild and it helps us to rest and just to energetically release whatever's going on inside of us. Um, something I love doing is um I have a notebook. It's like eight and a half, but actually it's smaller than that. It's it's like a small notebook. And I fill one page up with gratitude for the day. Um, and I just I fill it till I can can't fill the page anymore. And I fill it with things that made me happy. Um, and that they're things that I look at from a perspective of how lucky am I that I was able to teach yoga today and all of my, you know, my whole body works and I'm healthy. Like I'm so grateful for my healthy body. I'm so grateful for my two cats. I'm so grateful for my boyfriend. I'm so grateful for my beautiful like coffee that I had this morning, for my walk to the lake, for the sun on my face, for the wind in my hair. So I I just like the same kind of thing you're saying, I replay my day and I go through the things that I'm really appreciative of. And something I learned from Abraham Hicks, actually, while I was going through the beginning of my spiritual journey is appreciating the things that we often take for granted. That, you know, I take for granted that I can just get up right now and walk to the kitchen and grab something if I wanted it, or that I can just get in my car and drive somewhere that I have a car. Like, so things like that. I really try to make it an intention to be really thankful for those things throughout the day that could easily, easily be missed, or that I can be wanting for more. And it really has shifted a lot of my perspective. And it's something I love, I love doing. And when I had Marley when my dog was around, the whole page was Marley, like my walk with Marley, you know, all the things. She was my baby. Like all of the things, like my chocolate lab that we went everywhere together, 16 years of her life. She was fantastic. Um, but that like the gratitude part is huge for me. And then um, something else I do at night, I do a call-upon. So something one of my spiritual coaches taught me, you can do it as long or as short as you want it to be. But I I protect my spirit while my body's sleeping. So when your body's sleeping, um, I protect my body, the whole thing. I protect my body and my spirit while I'm asleep. So before I go to bed, I call upon my guides. You can call upon anyone that you want to call upon, whether um whatever the name is that you use for the universe, God, source, etc., angels, your guides, whatever you would like to call on. And I call upon protection while my body sleeps because we do go into a state where you know we are completely open and having that protection really is kind of that spiritual hygiene piece that I do before I go to bed. So that's something that I truly, truly love doing. And then another thing, the last thing I do as I'm falling asleep, is that I use that for manifestation. That's when we really bake in our manifestations. Neville Goddard talks about that and having that visualization of what you want to call in, what you want to create. And we actually have a podcast about this, so we'll link it here, the podcast where we do the visualization sleep meditation that was part of our manifestation challenge. But that's something that has really created some deep big manifestations for me doing that before I go to sleep, like as I'm falling asleep.

SPEAKER_00: 25:37

I love that. I love that. So there are a lot of things, different things that you could try morning, midday, and evening. I think the point is to just try at least one, at least one of those times during the day, or one each one of those times during the day, if you can. And the last thing we wanna we wanna leave you with is to think about those ordinary moments in your life, like we were talking about your coffee here in the morning, tea, blankets, a fire, cooking, all these cozy things as we get into fall, driving down the streets in your warm car, looking at all the leaves changing around you, thinking of all these moments as sacred. Using cozy, this word cozy for the fall, as like your trigger, if something is cozy to you, seeing it as sacred, as ceremony, as ritual. And really infuse this into your into your everyday life, this intention of seeing these ordinary moments as sacred, as having these cozy moments of rest and renewal and ritual every single day. So create your own daily ritual of restoration, create your own daily rituals that you do for the weeks ahead. You know, we're getting into the throes of fall, then we're gonna be in winter. This is the perfect time to start and see what you can create over these next few seasons. And just remember that November's gonna bring some fresh energy. So let's lean into this energy of resting, this energy of renewal, this energy of ritual while we've got it at our backs. Let's create those habits that habit stack now. So as we move into other energies of the other months, we already have this as our back, as our foundation before we start to add on top of it.

SPEAKER_01: 27:41

Yeah, beautiful, especially as we have the energy of Mother Gaia and everyone, the collective right behind us, helping us slow down. We're being asked to slow down. So taking this pause to slow down as you start settling in. We're just starting the autumn equinox and we have these three beautiful months before we get into the winter solstice. So just enjoying this, enjoying these cozy moments, enjoying and appreciating what you have around you and this cozy time is just, yeah, what a gift. What a gift to have.

SPEAKER_00: 28:16

Absolutely. So thanks so much, you guys. Uh, we will see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01: 28:21

Yeah, thanks for listening. Have a great day. Talk to you soon, all.

SPEAKER_00: 28:31

Thank you so much for spending time with us on the Modern Zen Collective Podcast. This podcast is at the heart of everything that we do, created to guide, inspire, and walk alongside you on your journey. If you're ready for more, explore our Practitioner Collective, a trusted resource of experts in feeling and welcome to help you be effective or fast and the first time.