A sensitive weirdo with an Acupuncture licence
What does it mean to be spiritual? The term gets thrown about and people may automatically imagine someone with crystals, tarot cards, books on wicca and paganism and the belief of life after death.
Although the above things have their place when people call themselves spiritual they are signalling three things:
1. They attend to their ‘inner life’ - to their mental and emotional states - in the hopes of gaining a certain kind of self-knowledge.
2.The belief that there is more to life than meets the eye, that is to say, more than the mere material.
3. They value the following virtues: being compassionate, empathic and open-hearted.
Being spiritual seeks to better understand one’s inner life in order to act more wisely in the world. For many, becoming more reflective or aware of their inner life allows them to interact with others in a way that is less reactive, less harmful and more authentic to who they think or want themselves to be.
There are certain virtues which have come to be associated with spirituality: compassion, empathy and open-heartedness. These virtues naturally flow out of introspection inherent to spirituality because they require a high level of self knowledge. That is, knowledge of why we hold the beliefs that we do, knowledge of why we act in certain ways, and most importantly, knowledge of our interdependence.
This knowledge - acquired either through practices like meditation, yoga, self-reflection and in some cases psychotherapy or hypnotherapy - leads one to become more sensitive to the emotions of others, and even to one’s surrounding environments, both social and natural.
It is NOT an easy undertaking, to place priority on our own inner journey of self discovery. Spiritually awakening comes in stages and facing ourselves and our past actions requires forgiveness and compassion of both ourselves and to apply this to others. With the understanding we are all on different stages of our spiritual journey.
Personally my journey so far has spilled over into my work and personal relationships, judging somebody is an alien concept to me, instead acceptance and love is all there is room for. I am a spiritual being, as we all are if you are willing to embrace it. I have been rewarded by being able to communicate with spirit, feel others physical and emotional ailments through Reiki and have an extremely strong internal guidance system.
My usual spiritual practices are simple, listening to guided meditation before bed on whatever aspect I want to work on, self reiki and practicing mindfulness AKA fully immersing myself in the moment instead of thinking of the past or future. If something ‘triggers’ me I do not react, I question why and what could have caused such an emotional feeling and search back to past memories and experiences and I work on that with meditation, journaling or talking with the right people. I am still learning and growing and its a very enlightening and sometimes requires a lot of strength. But so worth it!
This month I went to a sound healing with IZA MOON which was incredible and an opportunity to mix with likeminded individuals
What spiritual practices have you done recently?