A growing share of Americans sees themselves as spiritual but not religious. While these people might not regularly attend religious services, they see spirituality as an important part of their lives.
If you’re seeking a spiritual awakening, it can be hard to know where to start.
The truth is there is no set formula to evoke spiritual enlightenment. In fact, being psychologically fixed on achieving this outcome could be a roadblock to getting there.
That being said, there are things you can do to encourage a positive environment for spiritual growth.
Clear Out Your Physical Environment
Oddly enough, one of the things that you can do to help encourage the potential for spiritual enlightenment is dealing with your physical environment.
Take a look at your home and your room and get rid of your belongings that you no longer need. Consider what material possessions you have that are serving as a distraction from what really matters.
Declutter Your Mind
In addition to decluttering your physical space, you also want to declutter your mind. You’ll want to spend a little time every day in alone and quiet. During this time you’ll want to practice letting your thoughts pass without judging them. Then you can only watch your mind become free of mental clutter.
Meditation is a way that you can relax into your present reality and truth. Within you, there is a space that is free from fear and only contains love. During this time, you can connect in a more profound way with your intuition, which can serve as a form of spiritual guidance in your life.
Examine Your Beliefs
It is important on the path to spiritual awakenment to be intentional and conscious about what you believe. Honesty is crucial in this process, and it can sometimes be difficult to reckon with the beliefs that secretly guide your actions, thoughts, feelings, and reality.
Are the beliefs that you have supporting your spiritual growth or holding you back from it? It is incredibly common for a spiritual awakening to require that you let go of beliefs that you’ve had throughout your entire life.
Expand Your Mind
If you are hoping to achieve spiritual enlightenment, you will want to explore different beliefs and new ideas. This can come in the form of books, lectures, conversations, and more. Expose yourself to a wide variety of worldviews and ideas to help you learn new things and stretch the boundaries of your mind.
When you practice expanding your mind, you are increasing the potential to be awakened into a life experience that would have been impossible or unknown to you previously.
Spend Time in Nature
There is spirit and energy in nature, and unfortunately, so many of us spend most of our time indoors and looking at screens.
Make it a habit to regularly reconnect with nature. This is possible even if you live in a dense metropolis. Take the time to admire gardens, breathe in the fresh air, and connect with trees.
Look online or ask your neighbors about where there are nature paths. You’ll find that in even the biggest cities there are conservation areas, local parks, and arboretums.
When you’re spending time outside, try to do so alone without another person and without the company of your phone. This is a time to commune with nature and the environment that secretly supports us even when we’re wrapped up in the mundanity of our daily lives.
(Are you interested in learning more about Archangels and their role in the unfolding of God’s plan? Follow this link to learn about the archangel Sachiel.)
Take Care of Yourself
If you’re trying to connect with your higher power, it’s important to stay active, eat healthy, and get high quality sleep. If our internal systems are getting clogged and weighed down by lethargy and unhealthy practices, we are cutting ourselves off from the potential of spiritual growth.
Learn to Let Go
One of the trickiest things about spiritual awakenings is that you simply cannot force them. While you can practice habits and live a lifestyle that is supportive of the potential for spiritual growth, there simply is no set formula to achieve spiritual enlightenment.
What this means is that you have to do what you can and then learn to let it go. Being attached to the idea of becoming spiritually enlightened, it can actually severely dampen your chances of that occurring.
It’s important to understand that you might not necessarily have one experience of spiritual awakening that changes you forever and leaves you enlightened. We are all on a lifelong journey of unfolding, evolving, and becoming.
Spiritual Awakening Stages
People have described the spiritual enlightenment process in a variety of ways. However, there are a number of different helpful outlines of the stages of this process that can help you understand what might occur if it were to happen to you.
The Call to Adventure
The call to adventure is a moment that, if you take advantage of it, will forever change your life. This is a new perception or an awakening incident that leads you to see life differently. This might be caused by a challenge, an illness, the death of someone close to you, a trip to a new place, the loss of innocence, the loss of a job, or something else entirely.
Choosing a Path
Once you realize that your current worldview is limited, it’s time to find a new path. This can be exciting as well as unsettling. This is a time when you are in search of answers and determining the best route to find them.
Following the Path
This is the stage of being a spiritual seeker. Now that you’ve found your path, it’s time to walk it.
Losing the Path
Spiritual awakenment is hard-won. This means that you will struggle and you will experience pain. However, the spiritual challenges you face are ultimately an obstacle that must be crossed to reach your destination.
Merging With the Path
Finally, there is a visionary and transcendent stage if you’ve successfully navigated the path. This is a permanent shift that allows you to awaken to your true and full identity.
The Path to Spiritual Awakening: Are You On It?
If you could purchase spiritual awakening at the store, I’m sure many people would. Unfortunately, it is not a tangible commodity that you can simply force to occur. It is a path, a practice, and a journey.
That being said, living your life in tune with yourself and with nature can encourage spiritual growth. It is important, though, to let go of any idea that there is a set prescription for achieving enlightenment. The call to adventure often occurs when you least expect it, and all you can do is be sure you’re paying enough attention to hear it when it calls your name.
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