Living Rituals
What if the most transformative spiritual practice available to you isn't something you need to find, purchase, or earn — but something woven into the ordinary fabric of your days?
That's the invitation at the heart of my conversation with Tracee Stanley, and honestly, it's one I needed to hear.
Tracee has been a guest on this podcast twice before, and every single time she returns, something shifts — in me, and if the messages I receive afterward are any indication, in you too. This visit was no different. We sat together (virtually, but it felt close) and talked about her upcoming book Living Ritual: Infuse Each Day with Purpose and Spirit, releasing August 2026 from St. Martin's Essentials. And what unfolded was less an interview and more a homecoming.
Meet Tracee Stanley
Connect with Tracee
Habit, Routine, or Ritual — What's the Difference?
One of the first places Tracee and I went in our conversation was the question of language — because so many of us are already doing things daily without ever thinking of them as ritualistic. We brush our teeth. We make coffee. We check our phones. We move through the morning.
But Tracee draws a meaningful distinction. A habit is automatic. A routine is sequential. A ritual is intentional — it carries meaning, it connects you to something larger, and it requires your presence. The action might look identical from the outside, but the quality of attention changes everything.
This landed for me in a deep way. Because how often are we doing all the right things — the morning walks, the journaling, the breathwork — but still feeling hollow? Still feeling like we're performing wellness rather than living it?
Ritual is the antidote to performance. And it doesn't have to be elaborate.
Life Transitions as Sacred Thresholds
One of the things that moves me most about Tracee's work is how she holds the hard seasons. Menopause. Divorce. Loss. The empty nest. The ending of something you built your life around.
Our culture tends to treat these as problems to solve or stages to survive. Tracee invites us to consider them as rites of passage — thresholds that deserve to be crossed with intention, with witness, with ceremony. When we mark transitions with ritual, something shifts in how we carry them. We stop white-knuckling through and start moving with the change.
There's also research to back this up — studies on ritual and the restoration of a sense of order in the aftermath of loss and uncertainty. The body and psyche respond to symbolic, intentional action. This isn't woo. This is how humans have always moved through grief and change. We just forgot.
For the Woman Doing Her Spiritual Life Alone
I asked Tracee what she would say to someone who feels like they have to walk their spiritual path in isolation — and her answer was one of my favorite moments in the conversation.
She sees you. And she also gently challenges the belief that spiritual life is meant to be solitary. Community is part of the practice. Belonging is not separate from the sacred — it is sacred. Whether that community is a circle, a podcast, a few trusted friends, or even an ancestor you speak to in the quiet of morning, you are not meant to do this alone.
Pre-Order Living Ritual
Living Ritual: Infuse Each Day with Purpose and Spirit releases August 2026 — and Tracee is offering a free 16-day Living Ritual Circle with preorders, running from new moon to full moon. It sounds like a beautiful container to step into as the book arrives in the world.
Pre-Order Here
Listen to the Podcast Episode
Weekly Challenge
This Week's Challenge: Build an Analog Cocoon
At the end of every episode, I offer a weekly challenge and Tracee's was one of the most immediately actionable we've ever had.
She calls it the analog cocoon.
Here's what it looks like:
- Don't sleep near your phone. Let your bedroom be a sanctuary again.
- Use an analog alarm clock to wake up — yes, an actual clock.
- Don't reach for your phone first thing in the morning. Try to hold a 15-minute buffer before the screen enters your world.
That's it. Fifteen minutes of morning that belongs entirely to you before the notifications, the news, the noise. Fifteen minutes to wake up as a human being rather than a content consumer.
I've been doing this for a few years with the no alarm clock, now I want to get better at the not looking at my phone within 15 minutes of waking!
