To create a practice menu, assign yourself a different specific spiritual practice on each day of the week. Do that particular practice from the moment you wake up until you go to bed at night. Whenever possible, pick a practice that might be particularly appropriate for each given day. For example, since Monday is a day that normally triggers a higher level of irritation, I often choose it to practice the nonmanifestation of negative emotions. The practice is to not express negative emotions, inwardly or outwardly, for the entire day. The practice isn't meant as a moral dictate to suppress emotions. Its purpose is to bring awareness to the emotions as they arise; we make the choice not to fuel them, justify them, or solidify them by expressing them internally or externally. Being human, we'll no doubt express negative emotions at least on occasion when we're doing this practice. But, chances are, we'll express them less. More to the point, when we do express them, we'll become aware much more quickly of what we're doing.
Another example: if you are facing a day when anxiety or fear is likely to be triggered easily, you could practice saying yes to fear for the whole day. Whenever fear arises, instead of running away or trying to get rid of it, simply say, "yes." Invite it in and allow yourself to really experience what fear is. Notice what fear feels like. Notice where you feel it in your body and what strategies your mind uses to push the bodily discomfort out of your awareness.
Another menu practice that can help wake us from our mechanical patterns is called "It does." Instead of using the pronoun "I" when describing yourself, for one whole day substitute the word "it." This is particularly helpful when describing your emotional states. For example, instead of saying, "I'm irritable" or "I'm depressed," you say, "It's irritable" or "It's depressed." Just by using the different terminology, you can momentarily step outside of yourself enough to break the normally blind identification with your emotions.
Other items on a practice menu might include focusing the entire day on awareness of sounds, on the movement and stillness of the hands, or on feeling the breath rise and fall in the belly. You could also spend a day asking practice questions such as "Am I here?"; "What is practice right now?"; or "What is my life really about?"
You will remember to practice more on some days than others, but practicing even a few times a day is better than not doing it at all. Just deciding to follow a practice menu means you're making practice a central focus in your life. Both pauses in time and practice menus are reminders to return to reality. They can sharpen the fuzziness that we often feel in practicing with everyday life.
The practices on the menu aren't meant to add another 'should' to your life. For example, to dedicate a day to the non-expression of negative emotions doesn't imply that negative emotions shouldn't arise; nor is it mean to propel us to sainthood via behavior modification. The point of these alarm clocks is to remind us to see clearly what we're doing. They're ways to rouse ourselves from waking sleep and mechanical reactivity, and to enable us to see clearly what gets in the way of awakening.
— Ezra Bayda in At Home in the Muddy Water