So you’re interested in spirituality, but don’t know where to start? You’ve probably just gone through a massive transition, are feeling stuck or are just trying to make sense of life. Exploring your spiritual side is an amazing and transformative place to begin.
What is Spirituality?
Spirituality can mean different things to different people, it's the practice of looking inwardly and seeking a meaningful connection with yourself and potentially with something higher. In order to express ourselves we truly need to know ourselves and spiritual practice is a great way to get to know you. Here are 5 helpful tips to get you started on your spiritual journey.
Top 5 Tips for Spiritual Beginners
Tip 1: Meditate
Meditation is like going to the gym for your brain chemistry. We look after our bodies, but what about our brains? It is the practice of training your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts.
Our subconscious minds are powerful and tend to be stuck on a loop, so 90% of the thoughts that you have today are the same thoughts that you had yesterday and the day before that.
Meditation is the practice of becoming more aware of your subconscious mind drifting into negative or counterproductive thoughts.
If you find that your inner-monologue is recycling the same old depressing stories or you’re highly anxious and constantly worried about your future, then this might be one of the most powerful tools you can use at the beginning of your spiritual journey.
Getting started can feel quite challenging, but like working out, it’s all about consistency. The more you practice, the more profound your meditations will become. We recommend starting with guided meditations and aiming to meditate for 10 minutes a day.
Helpful Hints:
- If you miss your morning meditation don’t skip that day. Find some time, whether it be on your lunch break or right before bed and meditate for 10 minutes until it becomes a habit
- If you're finding this difficult, find small moments of time in your day to take 3 conscious deep inhalations, clear your mind and focus on your breath. This could be while brushing your teeth, in the shower, while you're waiting for someone or any other moment that you find a bit of time
Tip 2: Journal
Journaling is a surprisingly simple way to discover more about yourself and enrich your spiritual experience. It gives you an instant boost in self-awareness, as you begin to develop a relationship with your inner-self. Sometimes our minds feel like a jumbled up mess and journaling is a great way to organise your thoughts and unburden your mind.
Set a time to reflect on your spiritual journey. You can write about how you’re feeling on that particular day, what you’re grateful for, reflect on experiences you're having or even vent your frustrations about the people and situations in your life. It’s amazing what you’ll discover when you write it down.
You can journal once a day, once a week or even once a month. You might only write at times that you really feel the urge to and that’s okay too. What matters is that you try it and see how it makes you feel.
Helpful Hint:
- Don’t think, just write. Write anything and everything down without worrying about how it sounds. This is a private conversation between you and you, write whatever you feel.
Tip 3: Unblock Your Chakras
You’ve probably heard of the chakras before but have no idea what they’re all about. The 7 major chakras are the energy centres of the body that run along your spine.
Each chakra represents a different emotion from; fear and guilt, to creativity and sexuality, self-confidence, love, expression, intuition and enlightenment. These emotions are connected to the vagus nerve, which is the largest nerve in the body and is responsible for connecting the brain with your emotions.
When the chakras are open and your vagus nerve is stimulated, energy runs freely though your physical body and creates harmony, when they’re blocked it means that you have stored trauma or unresolved issues related to these centres.
You can begin the process of unblocking your chakras, stimulating your vagus nerve and creating alignment in multiple ways; through meditation, massage, breathwork or yoga.
Helpful Hint:
- Decide on which practice you’d like to try out, meditation, massage, breathwork or yoga and start working on each chakra. Start with the Root Chakra and work your way up in order.
Tip 4: Get Creative
Creativity is often something that society looks down upon. If it’s not monetisable, it’s not worth the time right? This mentality has become more prevalent in today’s society and couldn’t be more harmful.
Creativity is innate in human nature. Everything that we see today was once just a thought in someone’s mind, an idea that they made manifest through their creativity and drive.
Dealing with day-to-day survival and “life-maintenance” as I like to call it can be overwhelming for some of us, so we often forgo any creative fun. We accept the monotonous cycle of our day and don’t really have the energy to try anything new.
Reality is, first we need to survive, then we get to thrive. But how to start thriving?Ask yourself, what do I love? What’s a hobby that I’d love to take up? What’s something that excites me, but I’ve been too afraid to try? What part of my day or week can I use to get creative?
Helpful Hint:
- There should be no goal here other than pure enjoyment. Express yourself in whatever way comes naturally to you. The more you do it, the more it will become a habit.
Tip 5: Practice
Just like anything else that is truly worthwhile, you can’t master spirituality without practice. This doesn’t mean that you need to know everything before getting started. It’s actually quite the opposite.
Get started now, embrace the journey, test and see what works for you and what doesn’t.
Everyone is different, some things that click for me might not be right for you and vice versa. There is no work to be done before you get started, you just need to start exploring and allow for what comes.
Helpful Hint:
- Don’t try to do everything at once. Start with one spiritual practice a day like meditation, journaling or getting in touch with your creativity and see what fits.
Final Thoughts
Exploring your spirituality shouldn't feel like a chore. There are so many different tools at your disposal to learn and grow on our spiritual journey, take advantage of them. If you're just getting started with our Top 5 Tips for Spiritual Beginners, don't be too hard on yourself, try each one, see what you like and implement those changes into your daily routine.
If these 5 tips are too challenging there are also so many other little things that you can do, pause and take 3 conscious deep breaths, catch yourself in negative thought and redirect it, get out into nature or out in the sun, ground your feet into the earth or simply treat yourself to something nice.
Listen to yourself, listen to your intuition, listen to your body and you will be well on our way to becoming more in touch with your higher self.
