“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ~Teilhard de Chardin
We human beings tend to think of ourselves as being either healthy or sick. We act as if there are only these two options. In fact, spiritual wellness is not limited to these two opposite extremes.
Wellness is more of a spectrum. There is optimum health on the one side and poor health on the other. But most of us live, moving back and forth, somewhere along the spectrum, feeling healthier at times, and not so well at other times.
What is the definition of Spiritual Health?
A Healthy Spirit means so many different things to different people. For me, spirituality is a sense of wholeness, a sense of knowingness, and a sense of something far greater and more wonderful than what I see in front of me. When we get sick we have two paths we can take; we can shrivel up and succumb or we can open ourselves up to a new journey, a new rebirth.
Making the choice to be Spiritually Healthy
In life you make millions of choices. Each day you make thousands of little choices. Each choice leads you either toward wellness or toward poor health. You make choices about where you live, where you work, who you live with, what you eat, whether or not you exercise, how much you sleep, etc. All these choices affect whether you are moving toward or away from wellness.
You also make many choices about whether or not you invest in yourself spiritually. Nurturing your spirituality involves knowing who you really are and living a balanced life that is meaningful to you. On an energy level, spiritual wellness involves being present in your body and creating balance and flow through your personal energy system (aura, energy channels and chakras). Doing things like learning to meditate, receiving spiritual healing and spiritual counseling are spiritual investments in yourself. These practices support you in knowing who you are and what you need to do in order to create balance and flow in your life.
Here are some simple ways to nurture your spirit and ensure optimum spiritual wellness:
Prayer
Prayer is an inside route into tapping the Divine Power that surrounds us at all times. The conversations you have with God in prayer, in themselves help your spirit cleanse itself. Immense clarity of thought and positive directions become apparent if you pray and ask for guidance. Especially when we are most uneasy, prayer offers ease and comfort to the soul.
Meditation
Meditation is the ultimate way to know yourself. By learning how to meditate you can pull back from the world and focus on what’s going on inside. With self awareness you can clearly identify where you need to restore balance. With the self awareness developed in meditation, you can also go back into the world and make choices that are healing for you and your life. On an energy level, meditation supports you in being present in your body, releasing unwanted energies and creating flow in your spiritual energy system. To receive the long term benefits of meditation, it is best to practice regularly.
Spiritual Healing/Aura Healing
Spiritual healings support you being grounded in your body, releasing unwanted energies, and getting your own energy flowing so you can heal yourself. Healings can be miraculous, but rather than expecting a ‘one shot miracle’, healings are best approached as part of a regular routine. You would not meditate once and expect to be at peace forever. In a similar way, regular spiritual healings support you in moving toward, and maintaining, spiritual wellness.
Spiritual Counseling
A Spiritual Counselling literally means “a reading of the soul”. Through spiritual counseling you can gain tremendous insight into who you are and what you want to do. The best spiritual counseling sessions offer useful reflections about your life while still giving you room to have your own truth and make your own choices. Receiving regular readings also supports you moving toward, and maintaining, spiritual wellness.
With spiritual wellness, like many things in life, you get out what you put in. If you spend all your time making money and put no energy into spirituality, you might get rich, but you will probably end up spiritually unhealthy. If you spend all your time making your family happy and put no energy into your personal well-being, you might meet your family’s needs, but at the expense of your own spiritual health. It is necessary to make a commitment to healing yourself in order to create spiritual wellness…
Our spirit is our essence. And it also tends to be the one thing we neglect the most. We have to make time everyday tofeed our spirit. When we take care of our spirit we find the path to our authentic self and ultimately to living the life we were intended to live. Find your own definition of Spiritual Health.
True spiritual wellness is not about denying the body or ignoring other parts of your life. Spiritual wellness involves nurturing yourself on all levels of being. That includes taking care of your physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual needs. Paying your bills on time, having a healthy life, and giving back to the world are also part of living a balanced, meaningful life and part of nurturing your spirit.