Spirituality for the Broadband Generation...

I don’t have time for a spiritual practise!

I really don’t!

I work long hours each week, I cook my meals from scratch, do all my own shopping and housework, entertain my very demanding cat, spend hours being bored, feeling restless and questioning the meaning of life, (well I am human!) but nope, definitely no time for spiritual practise!

I don’t go to any sort of church or spiritual place of prayer or study. I certainly don’t take time out to meditate every day. Some of my “spiritual” peers would recoil in horror at this admission!

So how can I possibly be a spiritual person?

Well, the truth is that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience, so how can we not be?

We live in a society of now, now, now and more, more, more. We want it all, and we don’t want to wait for it. We are the Broadband Generation.

What is a “Spiritual Practise” anyway? The words suggest a repetition of certain spiritual pursuits. Does that have to mean going to church – I don’t think so. I have met many very wise and highly spiritual people in my life so far and most of them hadn’t set foot in a church for years, if ever.

Not that there’s anything wrong with churches I hasten to add, but just don’t have the monopoly on spirituality.

Spiritual practise and spirituality aren’t about being a sheep and going somewhere to be told what to do and how to act. We’re grown-ups; we already know how to do that.

Well, most of us do. I have met some exceptions to the rule.

Spiritual practise to me is getting back in touch with our spiritual selves and remembering who we truly are. Beautiful, highly evolved creatures of light and love, capable of so much more than we usually allow ourselves to achieve in this lifetime.

It is a remembering, we just don’t realise it at first. This is the paradox. We are evolving towards an enlightened spiritual state during this lifetime, but that’s what we already are.

Yep, that will mess with your head for a while!

The remembering is slow for most of us, you don’t wake up one morning and go

“F*ck me, I’m an infinite spirit! What am I doing in this funny little fleshy body?!”

Now like many of you, I’ve read my fair share of spiritual books in my search for meaning, spiritual evolvement and happiness. A lot of them talk about the benefits of meditation.

If I had a pound each time I’d been told I should meditate every morning for 30 minutes or so, I’d be very rich by now.

Meditation is all well and good, and I’m a big fan, but I just don’t have the time! I’m not a morning person at the best of times, and the thought of losing 30 minutes precious slumber before a long, arduous day in my other incarnation working for an insurance company, is more than I can bear!

In the evening I tend to be too tired to meditate and barely able to cook my own dinner, do my household chores and numbly surf the internet while my brain winds down, and maybe stream a movie to my laptop before bedtime.

Sound familiar?

Most people I know encounter similar blocks to their spiritual practise and feel they are somehow failing. You’re not, I promise.

I would agree that it’s far from ideal, but it’s where I find myself right now.

And that’s OK.

It doesn’t mean that you’re not a spiritual person just because you don’t spend hours on end sitting in a cave chanting mantras, or because you can’t travel to India to meet some obscure Guru, or you don’t practise meditation regularly or attend holy sites and rituals.

The whole world is my church, my holy site. I bow to the sun, I send healing rays to people that work with me, random strangers, and sometimes to the whole world just for fun. I bless the people I meet, give thanks for the bounty of the earth and the beauty all around me.

I was able to pick up on other people’s feelings, foresee the future and communicate with animals and with the spirits of those who have passed over before I ever first attempted to meditate, so it can’t be the only thing that leads to spiritual awareness, surely?

Spiritual practise should be as natural as breathing! And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they’re wrong.

Life is abundant with beauty and joy, and awareness is the key to spiritual enlightenment.

If you can become aware of what is true, and cut through the toxic fog of negative thoughts and words, then that is spiritual practise. Showing kindness and compassion is spiritual practise.

Sending positive loving thoughts to somebody who is sick or lonely is also spiritual practise.

All the wisdom of the universe is already inside you. There’s no need to spend years studying or crawling on your hands and knees to find it.

We are the Broadband Generation, and our path is a lot easier in many ways than that of those who came before us, in previous centuries.

You are already connected to your higher self, so just download the knowledge that is already yours!

Does that sound a bit “Matrix” to you? Yes, me to. Don’t you just love it?!

Feeling Down?

Everybody feels down sometimes, but I've noticed a lot of sad faces around at the moment.

I've not been exempt from it either; I felt quite low myself a few weeks ago.

Nobody likes feeling down, but I learned recently that your own thoughts can make you feel worse by beating  you up about feeling down and being "a misery" so it's a double whammy. Talk about catch 22!

Society doesn't like you to be anything other than happy and conformist either, so well-meaning friends, family or colleagues may unhelpfully tell you to "cheer up" or "snap out of it."

As a result we tend to try & pull ourselves out of it by stuffing back down whatever was bothering us.

A dangerous thing to do - and sadly one that's like to come back & bite you!

I've been doing a lot of work on myself, much of it healing work, and many of my past and present issues have been coming up. It's been a long, painful journey, but I know I'll come out the other side better for it.  I have to remind myself that it's OK to feel down sometimes.  There are times when all you want to do is scream, cry and hit pillows - and you need to go and do it!

Get the anger, frustration, sadness or whatever it is out of your system. You can't hold onto that stuff without it hurting yourself on some level, so let it out. 

Many of the spiritual schools of thought teach that harmful emotions when held onto, manifest as physical problems in the body such as injury and illness. Even medical doctors concede that mental state has a lot to do with your health.

Buddhist teacher Tara Brach suggests that when you have these "bad emotions" to recognise and  name them, i.e. anger, frustration, sadness, and allow yourself to feel them fully, and they will  pass quicker.

Children have no problems expressing their emotions, toddlers are perfect examples of how to release them. They'll have a tantrum and a few minutes later will be happily playing with their toys again!

Now, I'm not advocating that you go and punch your neighbour in the face for annoying you, there are always appropriate ways of expressing your anger, and hurting yourself or others is not one of them.

Equally, I'd like to encourage you not to bottle it up either. Just because you succeed in "controlling" the emotion and repressing it, doesn't mean you've dealt with it, and it certainly doesn't mean it's gone.

It will just as likely come back at a later date and bite you in the proverbial!

Many of my peers who are healers or psychics believe it's somehow "un-spiritual" to feel anger or other negative emotions, and I fear that many of them repress their feelings as a result, in an attempt to appear more enlightened.

The fact is that we are all human. You can't get away from things that will make you angry or upset, and it's only natural to have and express these feelings. Even the Bible depicts that Jesus got a bit cross now and then as I recall!

Moreover, you validate the feelings of those who look up to you, and show that it's very much OK to have them. I would be very wary of any spiritual teacher who tries to tell you that anger no longer affects them, and who acts enlightened and perfect - I would almost guarantee they're living a lie!

So if you're feeling down today, it's ok. Don't be down on yourself for feeling down. Honour your feelings and don't feel bad about having them.

Let yourself feel them, and express them in a safe manner. 

When you're ready, they will go all by themselves, and the world will smile again.

:)