Being Spiritual

In my work, I often find that people who are just beginning their spiritual awakening have this great sense of wanting to do it the “right way”.

This desire usually comes from a noble place. A place of wanting to get it right. A place of wanting to honor God or The Universe or Spirit or Source or whatever name they have given to it.

I love it when people carry this intention of wanting to do it the right way, because it shows me that their heart is opening and they are in a place of wanting to live consciously. However, I also find that for many people this idea can prevent them from beginning to explore their relationship with Spirit before they even begin. They find themselves confronted with all of this dogma built around spirituality and they begin to reflexively shut down their expansion. In my opinion, dogma and rules around being or doing don’t belong in a spiritual practice. They’re the antithesis of what it means to have a spiritual experience. The point is to cultivate your own connection and to find what works for you. The most powerful tool that one can posses on their spiritual journey is their sense of discernment. Spirituality is for everybody and the experiences are as varied and as unique as the people who are having them.

Being spiritual isn’t about what you wear or what you eat or what you say or call yourself. Changing your name to Broccoli Flower Moon Wing and only wearing purple and chewing Chia Seeds all day doesn’t make you spiritual. You don’t have to capitalize I AM every time you write it, or change the word human to HUEman to be spiritual. If any of these things make you feel closer to your Source, then by all means go for it! But none of them guarantee that your experience will be any more or less spiritually valid than another.

I believe it is about your personal relationship with the divine spark that lives within everything. It is about living in the truth of who you are in each and every moment as you know it to be. It is about acknowledging that everyone is doing the best they can from where they are. I believe it is a constantly evolving allowance of the flow of The Universe to be infused into our every action, thought, and word.

Most importantly though, spirituality is a conscious practice of taking responsibility for what we have created. A practice which has no end. Understanding that we are the the creator of all that we see, do, have and experience. Yes, we will fall, yes we will judge, yes we will say things from a place of anger. Yes, we will be dishonest and forget to meditate for days at a time. But don’t let the perception of having made a mistake fool you into thinking that you are less spiritual than another.

The ego is a slippery son of a bitch and often times we find ourselves engaged in a journey of the ego disguised as a journey of the spirit. Be true to what resonates as true for YOU. Find what you love and what fills you with joy and turns up the dial on your inner radiance. Find ways to be the embodiment of joy and compassion and love in whatever way you can. Allow yourself the spectacular, messy, joyous, experience of being human and know that when this life ends, another one will begin and you’ll get to keep on evolving in your spiritual practice. There are infinite roads to the top of the mountain and all roads lead to the top of the mountain.

No body gets to decide what spirituality looks like for you. Eat meat, don’t eat meat. Pray, don’t pray. Say Namaste or don’t. Buy a yoga mat, go lift at the gym or sit on the couch and veg. We are all made of stars and we are all source energy in a human avatar. Do you. Love you. Share with others. Practice compassion. Live your life.

We are here so that the formlessness of Source can have the experience of itself in form as us. That’s it. There are no trick answers. There is no “gotcha” if you somehow stumble and fall.

Get out there, fuck it up, make mistakes. Laugh, cry, dance and shout. Just don’t let anyone else tell you what spirituality should look, be, do, sound, or act like. Respect the choices of others as you respect your own and trust that we are all just doing the best that we can do to get to the top of the mountain.

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