So What Is Spirituality, Anyway?

"Pysychedellic Vintage"
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Everyone has their own thoughts and ideas about what it means to be spiritual. But what does it really mean? 

Sure there are certain practices which are related to being spiritual such as meditating, yoga, praying, using crystals, and so on, which are all helpful and beneficial for our inner peace, balance, health, and well being. More and more people are becoming awakened and doing these types of practices which is a great thing. But is everyone really seeing the true meaning?

"Symbolic Rainbow"
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 As humans in this life, as much as we can strive to be the very "best" we can be, like for example be completely vegan and follow a strict healthy routine every single day, eventually we will slide away from it in one way or another.  But one thing we must remember is that when we do stick to a healthier routine to become more spiritual, we feel good about ourselves yet ironically we sometimes tend to believe we are better and superior than those of us who don't follow the same lifestyle which is totally natural.  It's just the ego rearing its head to mess with us every time we try to make a positive change. Alot of people tend to think the ego just relates to vanity.  Sure, vanity is part of it, but the ego is much more than that.  It's that voice inside our heads which tells us lies and feeds off our fears.  And the more we believe in that ego, the bigger it gets, preventing us from being our true authentic selves.  How I've learned about the ego is from listening to this great podcast, Gnostic Radio which I highly recommend to gain a deeper and more meaningful perspective of life which is truly enlightening and well worth the time.  It's great to listen to while quietly doing small tasks or whatever you like. :)

So having a clearer understanding of how the ego works,  we can more clearly recognize the ego every time it pops up, then we can become more free and the true meaning of spirituality becomes more clear.  Although it may not happen overnight, practicing mindfulness, self awareness, and acceptantce which can all be done with meditation does help.  Plus keeping a journal, and even listening to enlightening podcasts such as Gnostic Radio is good, too.

And to the best of my understanding,  being spiritual is really just having unconditional love, acceptance, and compassion for all living beings including yourself just the same, regardless of lifestyle or belief.  Namaste :)

"Transformation"
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It's a Never Ending Journey...

So lately I've been feeling this strong urge to write, hence this blog site.  So where should I begin? Um...

In the past recent years, I've been delving deeper into self-help, spiritualism, practicing positive thinking, meditation, and many other related things to change my life for the better, reach higher consciousness, and gain a clearer, more enlightened way of looking at life. Although I do find all these things work, it also has to be something to keep sticking with which isn't always easy for everyone seeing as we all live in an ego driven reality full of distractions. I still keep trying, yet still learn something new at the same time which is always a plus.

At the age of 40, I've just recently realized that there is no failure.  Nope failure does not exist as long as you just keep going.  Also, I do not believe in the term "self improvement".  To me, the term just means that the self is flawed and needs to be improved which just sounds negative.  I'd much rather go with "self enhancement" because deep down we are all perfect with unique qualities which could use some enhancing and encouraging.  In the end, there is nothing to really "improve" but there's always something to strengthen and complement.  And that is my honest recent realization.  I only wish I knew this long ago, especially during my 20's but that's all just a small part of the journey.

We have our good days and we have our not so good days. In the way that I see it, if it weren't for the bad days, how can we have our good days?  Imagine what life would be like if we had nothing but good days. Every day would be exactly the same. In fact it would be no different than if every single day was a bad day. No one would ever know the difference. There'd be nothing to learn and nothing to grow from. Life would have no meaning.  I'm actually thankful for bad days because its because of them, there are more opportunities and more room for growth and change. And change is nature's delight. 

So how do we get through the bad days and the pain that that comes along with them?    I've learned that bad days should be faced with acceptance which I know is easier said than done, especially if you're a drama queen like me who has a tendency to overreact to the point of dwelling in the whole "Oh woah is me, my life is over!" attitude, only to realize that that way of thinking is just plain silliness when it passes and then you just feel stupid for letting yourself dwell in that negative nonsense in the first place.  Well you know what?  You are a human being with human emotions so there's no reason to beat yourself up for it.  That's just human nature and there's no shame in that. We all have a right to have our bad days which I find is the best time to retreat, reflect, even throw our own occasional pity party with ice cream & tissues or whatever you wanna do, whatever it takes!  And after that, you know you went through that mess so now you're stronger and better than before having shed that old skin, shiny and new again with a new wisdom and ready to be yourself again, only better. But the main thing to remember is this: Always take time for yourself. Nurture yourself. That way, you can shine again, even brighter than before! Even so in a way to help others and being able to do that is the greatest gift you can gift yourself at the same time! Now how cool is that? 

So what it all comes down to is that in this constant journey of life, the way you treat yourself is how you treat everyone else around you. Namaste :)