talking about spirituality vs living it
I really want to talk about this because recently I was in a session with a client and I mentioned surface level spirituality. She then expressed how she felt she has been living that just a few years ago as opposed to now she feels as if she is doing the actual inner deep work.
Since spirituality is becoming a fad these days and is “in” I do feel that there is a lot of talking about it, taking pictures, sharing, but is there really a lot of actually living and embodying it.
Are we honoring our spiritual practices by doing them or just making sure others know that we are doing them?Are we focusing on how we feel and being present in the moment or are we sharing and talking about it constantly? It can almost lead to spiritual burn out at times!
That’s why lately I have been practicing living and embodying my spirituality instead of just talking about it. Even the term “spirituality” can sometimes trigger anger in others or judgment. And other times I feel the term is so over-used that people are just plain tired of hearing about it. So let’s try and fully integrate it and see what affects it has on us rather than repeating the words over and over until others just don’t want to hear about it altogether!
Some ways lately that I have personally been doing this;
Meditating without telling others about it or how it made me feel. Just sitting down each day, doing 15 minutes at the minimum to soft music, and focusing on letting the thoughts shoot right out of my head as soon as they appeared in.
Journaling my feelings out - the good and the bad.
Not posting on social media when I do my spiritual practices, taking breaks off social media completely sometimes. This feels so damn good, I cannot explain it. I do feel that sometimes when it comes to social media it can prompt us to overthink everything instead of just keeping things more simplistic and living our lives. Focusing on how our lives feel and affect us, rather than how they look to others on the outside.
Spending time alone, completely alone.
Going out into nature and not taking any pictures. This is a big one, as I find myself reaching for my phone almost as instant as I see something beautiful outdoors. But taking the time to just soak it all in, without the phone, eliminates the distraction we have when trying to get the perfect shot. Sometimes I see others pulling out their phones as soon as we leave the city limits, and honestly sometimes even never putting it down the entire time. When that precious time could be spent fully encompassing the feelings that connecting to nature brings us.
Taking a break from self-help and spiritual resources. Sometimes we can overbear ourselves with input - be they books, podcasts, documentaries, articles, conversations, social media accounts, YouTube videos, etc with self-help and/or spiritual content. But I think what is just as good is taking the time to integrate the information and lessons that we learn from these resources. If we just skip from one resource to the next, will we really learn anything? Will anything really stick with us and be easily applied? In my experience this is another way we can accidentally hit spiritual burnout and fast. Sometimes we need to quiet our minds and listen to our own internal guidance. Sometimes we need a break from the input to actually put into practice what we are learning about. Sometimes we need to slow down and just live rather than try and squeeze every bit of information we can about a subject into our minds and hearts.
I like to think of it as everyone has a piece of the puzzle, but they are just pieces. Nobody has 100% all the answers we are looking for. The answers are always in ourselves and within our own interpretations and realizations of things. Pieces of the puzzle can help guide us there, but they are not everything.
I hope you loved this article.
