A Simple Ritual to End Your Workday Well

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John, the Catholic CEO of a small musical instrument company, remembers the moment he realized he needed to develop healthier boundaries between his work and his home life. His 10-year-old daughter was telling him about her day at school, but although he was looking at her and trying to listen, his mind was still preoccupied with a stressful problem at work.

Finally, his daughter called him on it. “Dad, are you even listening?” He said he was, but then couldn’t tell her what she’d just been saying.

“It was clear something had to change,” he said.

His experience isn’t uncommon. In today’s always-on culture, it’s easy to let work bleed into home life: the stress of the office lingers at the dinner table, emails pull us away from family time, and unfinished tasks whisper in the back of our minds, ruining our sleep.

Most importantly, poor work/home boundaries can impact our relationship with the people who matter most in our lives.

If these challenges are present in your own life, you might be interested in a simple yet powerful ritual developed by pastoral counselor, Grant Freeman.

The Last Hour of the Workday: Preparing for Tomorrow

One of the best ways to set yourself up for a strong start tomorrow is by finishing well today, Freeman says. He recalls an old saying from his days as a roofer: “The last five minutes takes an hour.” In other words, rushing out the door without wrapping things up properly only makes for a frustrating start the next day.

Instead, he recommends using the last hour of your workday to:

  • Clean your workspace: Put away tools, clear your inbox, organize your desk, and file papers where they belong. A tidy workspace means a smooth start in the morning.
  • Review your calendar: Take an honest look at your schedule and adjust as needed. Acknowledge where you are instead of where you wish you were.
  • Plan your first tasks for tomorrow: Identify the top priorities for the next morning. What emails need to be sent? What phone calls should be made? Writing these down now clears your mind for the evening ahead.
  • Count the wins: Even on difficult days, find something to celebrate. Did you complete a tough task? Help a coworker? Simply making it to the end of a hard day is a victory.

Ending the day in this calm, ordered way not only sets you up for a great start tomorrow, but will help you be a more peaceful presence with your family.

The Transition Home: Reclaiming Your Role

Once the workday is closed, it’s time to shift into a different mindset—one of presence, love, and service to your family. Freeman suggests several ways to make this transition intentional:

  • Change your clothes: Physically changing out of your work attire and into comfortable home clothes is a simple but effective way to signal a shift in roles.
  • Wash your hands and face: This small act can serve as a moment to pause, reset, and leave behind the stress of the day.
  • Say a short prayer: Taking a moment to center yourself spiritually can help you step into your home life with a heart ready to serve.

Your prayer can be from the heart; it doesn’t need to be complicated. However, Freeman suggests praying as you change your clothes and wash your face, using words similar to the following:

  1. As you wash your hands and face, pray: “Give strength and gentleness to my hands, Lord, to bear the responsibility of my family and bring Your loving touch to them. May I look upon them with love, so that they may see Your face.”
  2. As you change your shirt, pray: “Lord, shield my heart to fend off all the assaults of the devil. O Lord, You have said, ‘My yoke is sweet and My burden light.’ Grant that I may carry it in a way that gives You glory and brings the best out of my family.”
  3. As you change your pants and put on your shoes, pray: “Lord, let me remember that I stand created in Your image and likeness, in true righteousness and holiness. May I walk in spirit and in truth.”

By taking a few moments to close the workday with intention and prepare for family life with presence, you can bring greater peace, joy, and love into your home. Your work is important, but ultimately, it is for the good of those you love. This simple ritual helps you show up fully for them—ready to listen, engage, and lead with love.

If you’d like to explore this or other areas of stress in your life, reach out to Grant Freeman or any of the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Fasting From Falsehood

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The Lenten season has arrived. For some, this season is a time of great healing, blessings, and connectedness to God. For others, this time is challenging or comes with feelings of sadness or suffering. But what really is the point of Lent? And whether it is difficult or peaceful, how can we use this time to strengthen our relationship with God? 

A common Lenten practice focuses on sacrificing, or giving something up for 40 days. The intention of this is to say, “Lord, I love you more than I love this thing that I am giving up.” Then, each time we think about the thing we have sacrificed, or have a desire for what are fasting from, we instead shift our focus to the Lord and do something in that moment that leads us closer to Him. However, it’s easy for this practice of sacrificing to become twisted into the belief that we are meant to suffer throughout Lent (or in general). While this is not the case, there are two important things to address about suffering in order to understand why. 

First, we must recognize that we are not called to just suffer. Jesus did not suffer for the sake of suffering, he suffered to work for a greater good—for our greater good. This is the difference between suffering and redemptive suffering. Suffering without meaning is misery. Suffering with meaning, however, is redemptive suffering—and redemptive suffering leads to healing, works for a greater good, and leads us closer to God.

Second, it is important to understand the difference between what St. Ignatius referred to as Consolations and Desolations. Consolations are movements of the Holy Spirit that lead us closer to God and help us move towards meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue in our life and our relationships. Desolations are moments where satan is whispering in our ear and we are being lead towards feelings of powerlessness, isolation, and self pity and/or self indulgence. Now, this does not mean that consolations always feel good and desolations always feel bad. Consolations can sometimes be very difficult, sometimes they don’t feel good at all in the moment—but they do ultimately lead us towards meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue. 

So how do these concepts relate to our Lenten practice? If making some sort of Lenten sacrifice leads you towards greater healing through meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue, then that can be a wonderful focus for the next 40 days. However, if giving something up leads towards a sense of powerless, isolation, or self pity/self indulgence and feelings of empty suffering, God might be calling you to focus on something different this Lent. Perhaps if you struggle with self esteem or self acceptance a helpful Lenten practice would be to focus on taking care of yourself. This might be difficult, but would lead you closer to God by being a good steward of God’s creation in you. Maybe if your tendency is to bury your feelings or hide your feelings behind an unhealthy coping mechanism a fruitful Lenten practice would be to begin journaling daily or seek counseling. Again, this may feel uncomfortable, but would be a practice of redemptive suffering which would lead you towards greater healing and strengthen your relationship with God.

These are only two examples, however the goal and focus of Lent is to grow in relationship with God and to move us closer to becoming the whole, healed, godly, grace-filled selves we were created to be. 

If you need support throughout your Lenten journey or would like to learn more about how to move from a place of desolation to a place of consolation, check out The Life God Wants You To Have, or reach out to our Pastoral Counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.