Spiritual Fitness as a Way of Life: You Are Perfect™
Human beings have a dual and connected nature, human selves (busy – productive and non-productive) and spiritual selves. You are in a human body in the world where it is quite easy to get caught up in the drama of being human and forget your true spiritual nature (as Divine love in expression.) It’s important to restore your connection with spirit often or you may feel a bit anxious or lost. Another reason to address our spirituality, is that it is the lifeforce of our existence. Many people seek spiritual purpose in their lives, feeling drawn to know and live the purpose of their spirit here on earth. They join or are born into spiritual communities or religious traditions that help them develop rituals and practices that bring them closer to the experience of their own divinity. But even without a physical community we are all connected through the spirit. It’s like the spiritual version of the Internet which is sometimes called the inner-net. The depth of our spirituality can be experienced by :
- Self-mastery and acceptance of the human self and
- Practices and rituals that bring our awareness of the spirit to a greater level of experience and understanding
- Experiences with spiritual awareness
How Does Spiritual Fitness Work?
Various types of ritual, prayer, spiritual or religious practice, meditation, and breath regulation will help you to activate your spiritual energy and create blessings in your life.
Breathing practices still the mind and allow for activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Breathing is the integrating factor between the mind and body (as you relax the breath you relax the mind and body) and is of great assistance in many spiritual practices. Research shows that even five minutes a day of deep breathing can lower blood pressure.
To lower cortisol levels and stress to find a peaceful place within, meditation, prayer and what is currently used in education, business, health care and therapy: Mindfulness. It now has research to support that it can be helpful for pain management. Mindfulness helps you move from thinking to doing to being.
Spiritual Fitness Practices for Inner Peace
So many people have asked me how to stop the endless chatter in their minds. You don’t end it, because it is a function of being human. There are methods for changing the brain so that you can have a life that is driven by the spirit more so than the chatter. These methods activate the reward circuits of the brain, inhibit the stress response, and increase health both physically and mentally. One way is to recall a time when you were at peace, perhaps a religious or spiritual experience, a specific time, and recall what you saw at that time, what you heard, and felt. Fully engage with the memory for a minute and then allow a word to come to you that reminds you of this time. The next time your mind is overactive and is not allowing the spirit to drive, recall this memory and say the word to yourself a few times. If time permits you can go back to the memory and sit with it for a while. The more often you do this exercise the stronger the association it will have with peace
Spiritual Fitness in Nature
Many people say that they had an experience in nature that made them aware that they were a part of something bigger and felt at one with everything. For those, it was a life-changing experience. Others can connect spiritually to nature by standing on the earth barefoot and feeling the energy from your feet connecting to the earth like the roots of a tree. Some of the earliest spiritual practices on earth came from Indigenous people who used rituals to connect to the universal spirit through the earth, wind, water and sun.
Recently, some structured activities have been designed to help people connect through nature. Gazing silently at the night sky gives a sense of the larger universe and gets you outside of yourself. Mother Teresa said that “God, … cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence …”
Three Spiritual Fitness activities for You Are Perfect™
1. Hypnosis Exercise – Golden light through the crown chakra, down the third eye, throat and into the heart. Feel it pulsate there, see the golden light and feel it expand. Place right hand over the heart and then the left. Feel into this sense of the inner spirit, what image, word, body sensation or phrase comes to you that expresses this feeling of spiritual awareness. Say or see it three times. Stay in this awareness for a moment
2. Forgiveness Exercise for freedom from the ego and realignment with spirit: Ho’oponopono prayer
I’m sorry I was acting from my ego when I judged someone who did not look like me
Please forgive me – the act of removing yourself from the ego and asking for spiritual realignment
Thank you for allowing me to have this experience of misalignment in order to learn a lesson, to see something that was in my way.
I love you -This is the CRITICAL piece of the forgiveness because it is where you realign with spirit with nothing in between.
3.Spiritual Alignment– Recall a time when you felt spiritually aligned, perhaps in nature, during a moment of awareness or a meditation. Remember what you could see at that time, and what you could hear, what you felt and sensed. What word, phrase or image comes to mind with this recollection. This is called your “anchor” to remembering this time whenever you want to be centered.
Until next time,
Dr. Nancy