If you know of a story or charity we should feature please get in touch - Lifescape is here to make a difference
By: Silvie Celiz And Maryl Celiz
What does it mean to be spiritually active? We ask ourselves daily questions about what we should wear, what movie to watch, which dessert to order. But we don’t ask ourselves much about our relationship to our spirit, beyond what we think about the world directly in front of us and what our senses can perceive.
Who am I? Who or what created me? Why am I here? Am I doing what I came here to do? If not, what do I need to do to be on track? Does this feel like the right path for me? All of these questions lead you to one thing: a connection with your spirit.
Make it a priority to get and stay in touch with your spirit. Getting in touch with the source of you and all things, being aware of the bonds you have to everyone and every thing around you, looking at the grand picture, the Universal story of how you came to be and where you are going, personally and as a planetary community, all of these are starting points for you to begin to connect with your spirit.
Be proactive about this. You can adopt a daily routine with activities that will help you develop your spirituality and get in touch that essence of yourself until it becomes second nature. Spirituality is a lifestyle. It is not something you do for a second and then drop. The idea is to live your life coming from your spirit. Some tools that might help you get there:
❉ Cleanse – What emotions served me and which ones were negative? Leave the negative ones aside and add attention and strength to the positive ones, the ones that bring you and others peace, harmony and happiness. Clean your mind, body and spirit of anything that does not serve a positive purpose for you and the world. Write your emotions out. Talk things over with someone you trust, someone that has a good perspective on life. If you can’t find someone, do what a mentor once recommended: “talk to a book”. If there is energy that is stuck somewhere, make a decision to face it, analyze it, confront its source, or just drop the whole thing and let that energy go and flow. But be sure to bring up anything that bothers you right to the surface for cleansing. Ever heard of the story of the princess with the pea under all those mattresses? Your spirit is like the princess – you won’t be able to rest properly if there is even the tiniest, seemingly insignificant thing hidden “underneath”. Clean your wounds and allow for healing to take place. Free your spirit.
❉ Nourish periodically – This is a crucial step because, as you get rid of things that don’t serve you, you need to replenish your spirit with the right stuff. Our spirit needs to be fed constantly. Is there a really good book that you should read but haven’t taken the time? Perhaps a walk around the park as a time of reflection and communing with Nature? A really good movie with a message? Just like you feed your body quality nutrients, you must nourish your spirit with quality content, quality people and quality environments. Feed your spirit. Make it rejoice. Be aware that when you watch a movie that has unnecessary bloodshed, extreme violence or a generally distorted message, you are feeding your mind and spirit low quality “food” that will make you feel negative things like aggression, sadness, guilt and more. Be responsible for the nourishment of your spirit.
❉ Get creative – Nothing puts you more in touch with the Creator than being a creator yourself (which, as the offspring of a creator, of course, you already are. You just forgot that you were.) Exercise your birthright to be creative. The arts are fantastic tools for this. Pick up and instrument and play a song. Grab a pencil and draw a sketch. Get some oil paints and a canvas and paint a landscape. Cook – invent a new recipe. Write a short story. Act out an intriguing character. Move some furniture around and redecorate the place. Dance. “But I’m not artistic,” you say. It’s not about being ‘good’ at this – it’s about getting the creative juices flowing. The arts are not the only place for creativity. The best business people we know are the most creative ones – the ones that invented new technology, a new structure, a new system, a new perspective, a new way to communicate that perspective. The best scientists are also the most creative ones, because it takes innovative thought, open-mindedness and genius to discover solutions to scientific dilemmas. Creativity is everywhere, especially inside of you. Get in touch with it and you will be getting in touch with the ultimate source of all.
❉ Observe Nature – Few things put you in touch with your spirit the way communing with Nature does. A friends once explained that there are no right angles in Nature, no 90 degrees like we see in the concrete jungle made up of building after building. Our eyes were created long before urban environments were, and for reasons we are just beginning to study and understand, being in our natural environment is both soothing to the spirit and nourishing to the mind. Because Nature is not a lobbyist, has no hidden agenda, it is a place where you can surround yourself with honesty and truth. The moon can’t lie to you, it cannot manipulate you for its own interests and tell you that if you don’t do this or that, it won’t be full next week. The waxing and waning of the moon, the sunsets and sunrises, the tiny plants that break through concrete to get some rays of sun, the ebb and flow of the tides – all of these are reminders of the way the Universe works, the way things truly are. Being in Nature is being surrounded by Universal teachings about the rhythm of things, the importance of persistence, the understanding that no matter how bad something seems, tomorrow is always a brand new day. Make Nature your friend and advisor.
❉ Know and apply Universal Laws – The Universe works according to laws, such as Cause and Effect, Rhythm, and Mentalism. In order to be aligned, you must know these laws, understand them and work WITH them in your life, not be slapped in the face by them. Example: Working with he Law of Cause and Effect would be to think about something before you say or do it, analyze possible positive and negative results, and make your decision accordingly. Being worked by the Law of Cause and Effect would be doing something without taking the results (effects of the causes you create) into consideration, whether you will hurt someone in the process, and end up with a negative result that hurts you and others, and what’s worse, an effect that will seal your fate karmically, because whatever you do will come right back to you. Learn about how the Universe co-creates this thing you call life, and how you can be an active co-creator by knowing the rules of engagement and leading your life with this awareness. Check out our post on Universal Laws, where we explain the seven basic ones.
❉ Let go, allow for space – Once you go to sleep, you have to let go and, as some say, “Let God”. The thing about a beautifully orchestrated song is that there are plenty of spaces to help us appreciate – and to highlight – the instrumentation in between. The same goes for your life, your spirituality. Actively cleanse and nourish your spirit, play with it by being creative, and also allow it the time and space to just be. Some people say that prayer is you talking to God and meditation is God talking back. Whatever the case may be, be sure to include quiet meditative time to commune with your spirit, even if that takes place when you are concentrating on cutting an onion. You’ll know it when it’s happening, and you’ll feel incredibly balanced after.
Making these activities a priority – planning them, dedicating time and respecting that time you’ve set aside as if it were a work appointment – is important. A lot of times we don’t give importance to what isn’t right in front of us, what we cannot see. But the truth is that, there is nothing more important than your spirit, because your spirit is THE SOURCE OF ALL OF THOSE THINGS YOU THINK, FEEL AND SEE. If you do the work, it will shine through like the radiant light that is who and what you truly are and were meant to be
