The Power of Misogi: Intentional Challenge to Gain Clarity

"A critical benefit of misogi is what he called creating impressions in your scrapbook." - Marcus Elliot

October 12, 2021

A practice to gain clarity of your mind and body. Misogi comes from an ancient story where the god Izanagai, goes to the depths of the underworld to rescue his wife and when escaping, to cleanse himself from the life-threatening journey he dives into a freezing river. Diving into the ice cold water caused sumukiri, pure clarity of your mind and body. This practice evolved into a tradition where people pursued intentional challenge to gain clarity.

This is Misogi.

Michael Easter explores Misogi through conversations with Marcus Elliot in his book The Comfort Crisis and how our lives and Misogi can be interwoven. More adventurous challenges of purification.

Marcus Elliot said "Misogi's can show you that you had this latent potential you didn't realize and that you can go further than you ever believed."

Quick recalibration of what we thought was possible. Similar to what Dickie Bush explained for a writing practice, we do not find time to write we make time to write (Sacred Hours). Were can we make time in our life for Misogi and more consistent daily "Mini Misogi's"?

"In every situation, life is asking us a question and our actions are the answer." - Ryan Holiday

Misogi is an element to that answer. Creating challenges, expanding your corners, and filling the gaps with more clarity to gain more awareness in the present moment.

In closing of The Comfort Crisis Marcus Elliot explained "A critical benefit of misogi is what he called creating impressions in your scrapbook. If you're seeing and doing all the same things over and over, your scrapbook looks pretty empty when you take inventory of your life. So we need to do more novel things to start creating more impressions in our scrapbooks, so we don't feel like the years are flying by."

Expand the Corners, Fill the Gaps

Bryant Ferate (@BryantFerate on Twitter)

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