INSIDE: Spirituality comes in many forms for different people, often through religion or ideas of the divine. Cultivating spirituality really means to commune with yourself and your spirit to understand what values and truths most resonate with your everyday living. By practicing spiritual self care, you can gain greater peace and passion in your actions, thoughts, and desires.
Trying to talk about spirituality can be difficult for many people. That’s because spirituality is a deeply personal, intimate idea and practice.
For some people, spirituality refers to their religion and belief in an omniscient god. But spirituality encompasses much more than religious ritual.
It may be completely void of theistic belief. Spirituality can come through a deep respect and relationship with nature or a belief in the sacred self, that part of us that is beyond our mental thoughts and physical form.
Everyone’s truth is different. Take just a small sample of a few possible spiritual beliefs and personal truths, for example:
- To honor a god in words and deed everyday
- To live a life in which your actions always give back to others
- To do no harm to any being – plant, animal, human, air, earth, water
- To build and protect a communal family nurtured by universal acceptance
Spiritual experiences can manifest as we look at or make art, as we move our bodies, or as we sit in stillness. It’s important to connect to spirituality, the idea of a sacred true self – so important that it just might make us live longer.
No matter what you define as spirituality, taking time to practice rituals related to your true self will center your connection with your unique truth. You’ll find renewed energy and abundance in your mental and physical realms too.
Developing practices of spiritual self care will set you on a path to a strong, healthy relationship with yourself that will sustain you through life’s challenges and joys.
What is Spiritual Self Care?
We try to exercise regularly to manage our physical well-being. And we hear that crossword puzzles, reading, and other brain activities preserve our mental well-being.
But we need spiritual practices too in order to preserve our spiritual well-being. It will harness holistic health that will allow you to move forward in life towards goals and desires that honor your truth.
Personal Truth
Spiritual self care works to remind us of our personal truth. It continually reconnects us to our inner spirit. As challenges and negative forces try to distract us, we return to our fundamental driving force, the higher self.
While we can live in a spiritual community and share our spiritual beliefs, ultimately, we each need our own understanding of what fulfills our soul’s desire.
To get square with your personal truth, you need a clear vision of what meaning you want to draw from life. This vision can be utopian – spirituality is the space beyond fear, doubts, and barriers.
The point is to truly know and seek your desires.
Individual Practice
Let’s consider what is spiritual self care as opposed to other spirituality practices.
Self care is time we take to be with ourselves and recognize the unique gifts and values we hold separate from any other being on earth.
It’s important to make it a regular practice that returns you to a space of reflection, revelation, and inspiration. You should emerge from your spiritual self care feeling calm and content in your inner beliefs.
You should also find the strength and courage from your practice to take action towards your desires.
11 Spiritual Self Care Ideas
You may be used to ideas of worship in connection to spirituality, born from religions and cultures. Your individual practice, however, can be uniquely you!
Check out these spiritual self care ideas that will bring you closer to your personal truth…
Meditate
Meditation is one of the easiest self care practices to do, yet many of us feel daunted by the idea of silent stillness. But, when you understand that meditation has no rules, it can become a healing, cleansing practice. It will reveal all kinds of truths and connections in your life.
Meditation can last 5 minutes or an hour – some people meditate for days! It may be in complete silence or accompanied by light chanting music.
You can have a special meditation cushion or simply sit in a chair. Using crystals for meditation can also enhance the positive energy you seek in spiritual meditation.
For example, holding Labradorite can awaken your intuition and promote self-discovery. Or, place Aquamarine crystals in a circle around you to increase the flow of truth through your inner being as it finds and pushes out doubts and limiting beliefs.
And of course, an Amethyst Geode is always our favorite crystal to meditate with.
You can come to meditation with a fuzzy, confused mind. The time you take to sit in stillness to quiet those thoughts can release tension so that you find a sense of how to move forward.