You can change negative patterns with Daily Spiritual Practice
What is daily spiritual practice? Spiritual can be a controversial word. Spiritual practice doesn’t have to include yoga, prayer or meditation (although it often does). It can simply be something that inspires (in-spirit) you, that you immerse yourself in regularly. It is something that you love. Like travel, surfing, exercise, starting a new and inspired project, a new career, playing music or enrolling in an art class. It is not necessarily the activity, but the quality connection that you feel from the activity.
I have always been interested in spirituality and the esoteric, so yoga and meditation does it for me.
I remember when I first became interested in spirituality. It was 1993 and I was 22yo. I was not very well. I had chronic fatigue syndrome, was depressed and I drank too much. I was advised by my doctor that I would have chronic fatigue for the rest of my life and I would need to rely on medication to help me keep up my energy.
I came across the classical spiritual text A Course in Miracles and I started practising the daily lessons. I also started yoga classes. I loved yoga so much that I started doing yoga in the mornings at my little home in Brisbane. At the time, I didn’t know this was a spiritual practice.
Cultivating a spiritual identity, yoga, good diet, a good attitude and giving up alcohol changed all that for me. Chronic fatigue left my life!
I must admit, like anyone who has had a dependency on a substance, I would relapse and go on and off the alcohol. For me, when I stay committed to my daily practice, I would not drink and I’d stay healthy. It’s been 10 years now since I had a problem with drinking.
The whole and balanced feeling that comes with regular daily spiritual practice is what I’m dependent on now. No room in my life for habits that don’t serve me anymore.
Top 7 Benefits of Daily Spiritual Practice
You may wonder how can daily spiritual practice change you? On a psychological level, doing what inspires you, positively changes your brain chemistry. When you cultivate happiness, contentment and peace through inspiration, you attract flow and abundance into your life. On a more deeper spiritual level, cultivating a deep connection with your inspiration is a vehicle for the Divine to express itself. This is where real and lasting change can happen.
- Spiritual practice reconditions your thinking so you can set yourself free from old ways of being that don’t serve you
- You can access peace at will and experience a safe haven in the midst of stormy emotions
- You learn how to respond instead of react so you can stabilise the inevitable up’s and downs
- You cultivate spiritual strength to deepen your connection with yourself and your relationships
- You identify with an experience of stability and wholeness so you can balance your physical and spiritual life
- You can clear your mental clutter so you can tune into your own inner guidance and feel inspired with your life
- You cultivate self-love, kindness and compassion so you can rise above self-criticism and be the real you
For these 7 steps to work, you must identify with what inspires you and make time for yourself to do what you love, daily if you can. Sometimes when you move towards what inspires you, a lot of old doubt and fear can come up. You are making space for yourself to be the real you. There can also be protests from your loved ones because you are changing. So be prepared for some potential resistance, within you, and from others that may come up.
