We live in a society saddled with degenerate norms and harmful expectations....READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE ▶▶
In such a society there’s very little room or time for people to get in touch with their spirituality—to understand and nurture it.
But thankfully it’s not impossible to see yourself grow, to transcend that which society had consigned most people to.
To help you along, I’ll give you 15 ways to invest in yourself spiritually to live a better life.
1) Sit down and unwind.
In the same way that it’s hard to relax somewhere that is busy and noisy, it’s hard to grow spiritually when your mind is stressed and busy.
So first things first. You need to find a way to calm your thoughts. Simply put, you need to meditate.
When people speak of meditation, you might think of sitting cross-legged in silence for hours. That is certainly an option, but any decently repetitive activity that focuses your mind works.
If silent meditation doesn’t work for you, try to find something that works for you, like mowing the lawn or doing the dishes.
2) Stop making excuses.
It’s a very natural human instinct to want to avoid taking the blame.
That’s why most of us go to great lengths to blame others, no matter how obvious it is to everyone else just who was actually at fault.
While natural, it’s a base display of dishonesty and carelessness, and something you must learn to conquer in your journey to become more spiritually enlightened.
You cannot claim to be enlightened, for example, and foist your mistakes on others and leave them to suffer the consequences.
3) Think about how you can help others.
Charity is one of the qualities of a spiritually mature person—and a goal to strive for to those who seek to become one. Conversely, selfishness is the manner of the spiritually dead and immature.
In striving for spiritual growth, you must learn to set yourself aside and think of what would benefit the greater good.
Would you rather buy yourself a tin of caviar, as a treat to yourself, or buy bread to give to your poor neighbors?
Even something as simple as buying paper bags instead of plastic counts.
4) Stop trying to be heard.
It can be tempting—if you think you know it all—to shut your ears to what others have to say. After all, surely you are correct and they are in the wrong.
The enlightened person does not think that way.
They understand and acknowledge that every single person has a story to tell. And that no one person can be right or wrong all the time.
So instead of trying to make themselves heard, they instead sit back and listen to what others have to say.
5) Keep an open mind.
Ever thought of why spiritually enlightened people are so comfortable to talk to? It’s because they keep an open mind.
Someone who is judgmental and closed-minded is hard to talk to because you’re perpetually in fear of saying something that will get them mad.
On the other hand, when you talk to someone who is open-minded, you’re met with comfort. You know you can tell them anything and they will try to understand your perspective.
6) Try to stop taking things personally.
At some point or another you will have come across something that made you think “they’re talking smack about me!” and get you mad—only for you to realize later on that it was about someone else!
This is because all of us— as human beings— are full of insecurities. Even people who have matured spiritually still have those insecurities. You just can’t erase them entirely.
Spiritual growth lies in being able to restrain those same insecurities, which means that you stop taking things personally.
7) Try to be more patient.
This world can be quite frustratingly slow, even as it sometimes whizzes by so fast that one could scarce catch their breath. And sometimes, people are just difficult.
When you’re young and don’t know better, it might seem like common sense to complain about these inconveniences.
But consider this. What good does all that complaining do? Are there any benefits you might gain through calmer methods?
8) Take good care of your body.
Your body is a temple, and you’ll have a hard time getting in touch with your spirituality if it’s falling apart.
You might find yourself sneezing or getting a headache while you’re trying to meditate, for example.
So just as monks would set aside the time to sweep their gardens and repair broken walls, you should make sure you are treating your body well.
Think about the food you eat, or how often you bathe. Although you can be spiritual while your health and hygiene are deteriorating, it will be much harder.
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9) Get in touch with your inner child.
The modern world expects us to become jaded, stone-faced creatures the moment we reach adulthood.
Any shred of youth or childish enthusiasm is maligned. All of that in hope of crushing your inner child.
But despite that your inner child will never truly disappear. And the more you try to suppress it, the less in touch you are with the entirety of your person.
To be spiritually grown or mature, you must be in touch with all of yourself, so it’s necessary for you to set aside the time to slowly undo the damages that society has wrought on you.
10) Talk to a trustworthy guru.
Spirituality is a good thing to strive for and all, but sadly it’s not without its drawbacks. And the worst of those is that it can be manipulated.
Unfortunately, not all the gurus and experts that preach spirituality do so with our best interests at heart. Some take advantage to twist spirituality into something toxic —poisonous even.
This is something that I had learned from the shaman Rudá Iandé. With over 30 years of experience in the field, he’s seen and experienced it all.
From exhausting positivity to downright harmful spiritual practices, this free video he created tackles a range of toxic spirituality habits.
So what makes Rudá different from the rest? How do you know he’s not also one of the manipulators he warns against?
The answer is simple: He promotes spiritual empowerment from within.
Click here to watch the free video and bust the spiritual myths you’ve bought for the truth.
Rather than tell you how you should practice spirituality, Rudá puts the focus solely onto you. Essentially, he puts you back in the driver’s seat of your spiritual journey.
11) Learn to accept your flaws together with your strengths.
We all want to be perfect, even when it’s wholly in vain.
Most people choose to step aside and pretend that their flaws simply don’t exist.
But this willful ignorance does them more harm than good. They’re not only actively denying huge parts of who they are as people, they’re also blinding themselves to the harm that these flaws might cause to them and the people around them.
That’s not to say you should simply let these flaws be, of course. Rather, by accepting what they are, and that they might exist, you take the first step to dealing with them properly.
12) Learn to value the time you have.
There are two things certain in life: death and taxes. And while it might be a tough pill to swallow, the fact is that all of us started dying as soon as we were born.
We have only so much time in this world.
It might not seem that way. In fact, most of us don’t even think about it, and carry on as if we can live forever.
But that’s just willful ignorance to the fleeting nature of life.
13) Live in the moment while it lasts.
Every moment comes and goes. And once it has left, it will never return. Keeping that in mind, it’s of great importance to live in the moment, all the while looking towards the future.
Look forward to what is to come, certainly. But don’t let your vision blind you to the seconds that pass by you in the present.
And when things are bad, try not to wallow for too long — seek joy.
14) Try to sympathize and empathize with others.
We live the one life we have. We can’t simply look at someone and live everything they’ve gone through.
But you do not need to have lived their lives or had experienced the exact same thing they did in order to try to understand what they might be feeling.
The spiritually bankrupt person is so absorbed in their own self that when fists fly, they’re concerned about how others have hurt them. The spiritually enlightened person, on the other hand, tries to understand how their own actions might have provoked the other and then try to do better.
15) Let go of material things.
We live in a material world, but you don’t have to buy into that same culture yourself. Materialism is the polar opposite of spirituality.
Where spirituality concerns itself with love, faith, charity and humility, materialism praises hedonism, pride, and greed.
And if you think about it, what is it all for anyhow? The moment we die, rich and poor both leave their material possessions behind in the world of the living.
