Another lovely fall day……
When we begin our spiritual journey we often get very excited and confident that NOW life will come our way. We are inspired to work with our spiritual tools: becoming more mindful, focusing on what we want to create in our life, developing a meditation pracitice, journaling, working with spiritual laws and principles, investing more time in our physical practice whether it is yoga, walking, running, etc……and we DO feel better. More focused, centered, balanced. We have more confidence and a greater feeling of calm in our core.
But life happens. The world pulls at us. Old patterns are strong. We start to skip weekends. We may have a thought of “I don’t have enough time for all this.” We may be feeling really well so think we can let ourselves relax and that we don’t “need” to have all this attention on our inner life.
And then we begin to feel ourselves unraveling abit. We notice we are more emotionally ungrounded. We may feel more “separate”, more irritable. We wonder what has happened. We had been feeling so good!
I liken this to our own daily habits of cleanliness. Well, I took a shower or brushed my teeth today…..I am probably good for a week or a month or……we know how grungy we feel after a day or more of not bathing our physical body.
It is no different with our inner body. We need to stay consistent in the cleansing of our inner life. It makes all the difference in how harmonious we feel in our lives.
Where to start?? Find an empty notebook and put pen to paper and “pour your mind out onto the paper”. no editing or filtering. Let it all pour out. The complaints, the gratitude, the dreams, whatever! I have a timer that I use and I like to write for 20-30 minutes. If you do not have that much time, start with 5 or 10 minutes and build up. Don’t THINK just write and don’t stop writing until your alloted time is up! Then re-set your timer and sit quietly for 10 minutes. You can build up to 20 minutes. Just let your body be quiet and see what is going on in your mind. If you have time, put your tennies on and go for a walk to move your energy. Look around you! Get out of your mind. Let nature soothe you and speak to you.
Repeat this tomorrow, the next day and the next and the next…….see how you feel.
In the first level spiritual mentorship class our main focus is to develop a strong spiritual practice. What that means to me is to find time every day (meaning more days than not) to spend time with myself. Quiet time, reflective time, self-questioning time, emotional clearing time, physical movement………
There are many ways to work within a spiritual practice and you can vary it to your needs. As we become quieter inside we have more access to joy and creativity…….the true gifts of a fulfilling life.
If you do not already have a practice, start with what I suggest above. It is easy. It just takes a bit of time each day to give to YOURSELF. Then you have MORE to give to others and the world around you.
Blessed day! Melanie
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