Life as a Spiritual Practice

How can we expand spiritually–even in life's busiest seasons?

The real path isn’t learned from books

No Time for Spirituality?

As I explore the mystical path I’m blessed to have more and more friends to share it with; all that I’m learning and experiencing.

I even have a handful of friends who are open to hearing the really wild stuff that I’ve not yet figured out how to share in this format.

I was talking to one of these friends recently and she paused for a moment to try and interpret the feelings stirring inside her.

She spoke of her life of abundance, with young kids and travel and work that she really enjoys. This is a beautiful life she and her partner have worked years to create. And often a life of abundance requires a tremendous amount of time to manage all of it. So while she loved hearing about my journey and all I’m learning and the books I’ve read, she felt a bit disconnected from it because she wasn’t currently in a season that afforded her the time to dive into this vast new world of information.

“I mean it’s all so fascinating, but I just don’t have the time…the energy. I wouldn’t know where to start. I kinda feel bad about that too. I mean shouldn’t I be more interested in learning all this? Shouldn’t I be more spiritual?”

Hearing her explain her own situation clarified something for me in what felt like a profound way:

Sure, it’s wonderful, and one of the greatest joys of my life to have found mysticism and to have fallen into this wide new world of love and understanding, especially after wandering through the wilderness of religious deconstruction for a decade.

I’ve read many dozens of books and had hundreds of conversations about what seem to be the oldest and most sacred teachings of humanity, found around the globe and throughout our traditions, all sharing remarkable consistency and power.

And I plan to dedicate the rest of my life to the further study and sharing of this divine wisdom.

More than Books

But…reading books won’t do much for increasing our consciousness. Reading books won’t increase our capacity to love or help us understand that there truly is no “other.”

After all, we have plenty of dead religions that revolve around books.

And even those most wonderful books that may blow our minds (and there are many!) are useless if we can’t put these teachings into daily practice.

Most of the early-consciousness applications of the various traditions revolve around stories, rather than actions. It’s easy to argue about who has the “right” story; it’s not so easy to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

The Daily Practices

So what are a few every day spiritual practices that all of us can do, no matter how busy or complex our lives may be in this season? The following are a few I’ve personally found helpful, and they’re practices that require virtually no extra time from your day, but perhaps just a little focus and attention.

1) Send Love: Perhaps the most transformative practice I’ve come across, sending love will change your life, and quickly. I learned this practice from spiritual teacher Tara Springett in one of her many powerful books.

And you can do this very simply by just imagining someone you’d like to send love to, and then wishing them to be happy and healthy with all of your heart.

Or maybe you just send the person you’re focusing on positive, loving energy or vibes from deep within your heart.

I tend to imagine myself beaming dozens and dozens of heart emojis ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ out of my chest and to that person, wherever they might be in the world.

And that’s it. That’s all you do. It doesn’t take long. Maybe 10 to 30 seconds max. Maybe less once you get the hang of it.

Once I began this practice I felt a greater sense of peace and calm in my life almost immediately, even though the practice is about sending love to OTHERS.

I felt more joyful. I felt lighter. I found that individuals who’d previously bothered me (because I couldn’t stop ruminating over them or their behaviors) suddenly had less power over my life.

I found a deep connection through sending love to my wife and my child, even when they weren’t in the same room, and especially when I was away travelling.

Within a couple weeks I was sending love to everyone I could think of: family, friends, foes, and even strangers. The more love I sent the better I felt.

And as you advance in this practice you can even send love to those individuals who really bother you. The politician who gets under your skin. The person who did that thing. They individual who cuts you off in traffic (my favorite.)

2) Honor Your Intuition: This one is subtle, but powerful.

Many years ago before I ever understood intuition as a spiritual gift I was able to recognize that there were often times in my career when I felt a prompting to do something with a level of urgency.

Perhaps it was the feeling that we needed to follow-up with a customer by 3pm that day or else I just knew they would become frustrated with us. And sure enough, anytime I discounted or ignored that feeling I’d almost certainly hear from that customer, who was upset about a delayed response.

Honoring these feelings made me great at my job, and I soon had a reputation as one of the most reliable individuals within my business, simply by following the prompts.

Perhaps you’ve noticed some similar pattern in your own life, whether it’s with your work or your relationships or something else entirely? Honor it. Pay attention.

These days I’m more tuned in to my intuition when it comes to individuals and relationships, and in fact it was intuition that led to one of the single greatest gifts of my life.

About a year ago I felt a thought arise that I should reach out to someone I’d been following on Twitter/X. This was strange because first of all, sending cold DMs to strangers on the internet isn’t really my thing. And secondly, I wasn’t sure if the idea was even a good one.

Now this is important to pay attention to.

I’m blessed to be someone who feels like they have good ideas fairly regularly. And these good ideas allow me to accomplish many things that are positive in my life. I find I generally act on these good ideas rather quickly and consistently.

But when intuition arises, at least for me, it generally doesn’t seem to have the label of “good idea” attached to it. And it’s also not arising in my head.

Rather, intuition seems to be more of a feeling or awareness coming from the center of my chest. And it always seems to appear as simply information, rather than something brilliant I just thought up.

Not good, not bad, just information.

Returning to my example above about reaching out to someone on Twitter/X, I probably ignored the “information” for a couple of weeks. But it kept arising, again and again, until one morning I saw that the individual was tweeting a question that I felt only I could provide the perfect answer for.

So I reached out.

Today he’s a close friend who’s enriched my world beyond words. I love him like a brother and feel like I’ve known him forever.

Thank you, Intuition.

I could go on and on about intuition, but we’ll leave it there for now.

3) Notice Your Edges, and Get Curious: Last summer I suddenly began to notice the areas where I was allowing myself to get annoyed; then I began asking “why?”

Why does this annoy me?

One example was my home. If something was out of place or broken it historically created an outsized emotion for me. I’d be annoyed until the issue was resolved. It would be a source of low-grade irritation and distraction until it was fixed.

And living in a 35-year-old home with other family members guarantees that at least once per week, if not daily, there will be something that is imperfect or broken; hence why I so often felt unsettled in my own house. (I found the same thing would happen with our vehicles, where some sort of maintenance or cleaning seemed never ending.)

So I forced myself to get curious.

Why had I ceded control of my peace of mind to an external source?

What I realized is I’d placed certain expectations on my life (ie, living in my dream home) to compensate for the idea that other dreams in my life would never be realized. For example, I’ve always had this deep sense that I came into this life for some sort of Divine service and purpose, but I found that despite my own best efforts in this area this purpose never seemed to materialize in a way that felt satisfying. So several years ago I made a conscious decision to try and replace the need for Divine purpose with material abundance and the very best this life had to offer, since I’d concluded I’d never get live out what I’d originally felt was my true reason for being here.

And it was fun. It was nice. But the upkeep and the striving felt exhausting.

Suddenly, with a new awareness of my edges, I now realized that so many of the expectations I’d created were actually compromises in service to the idea that I’d never get the chance to experience a purposeful life.

And so now, only a few months later, I’m far more comfortable with disorder around our home as my world expands, and I can slowly let go of the compromises. Today I try to live as if our home is a hotel and our cars are rentals. When I go on vacation I don’t get consumed with what type of art is hanging on the hotel wall or if the rental car isn’t perfect. I don’t even notice. I’m focused on bigger things.

4) Daily Reflection, But Without Judgement or Shame. Every advanced spiritual system I’ve encountered teaches daily reflection/introspection as among the most crucial practices for spiritual expansion.

How do we do this?

Simple. Each evening before bed we take a quick inventory. What went well today? What could we have done better? How might we approach that situation next time?

That’s it!

Don’t allow shame or guilt to creep into the practice.

I was a jerk today? Ok, that’s good to be aware of and next time how might I handle that type of situation differently?

Again, so many of us grew up in shame-based religious systems with words like sin and repentance; but that’s not what this is about.

This is about noticing how you lived your day and how we might approach tomorrow a little bit better. This might also be the time when we can incorporate some of the other practices from above like sending love, considering if intuition is guiding us somewhere, or reflecting on where our edges and emotional triggers might be.

Give it five or ten minutes. Then set it aside, forget about it, and sleep peacefully.

I’m No Expert

I try hard to not present myself as an expert on any kind of spiritual practice, or really anything related to spirituality. I’m just someone with deep interest, trying to figure some stuff out, sharing what works. And I’ve actually begun working with someone much further along the path to learn more about living an hour-by-hour, attentive life. It’s so much fun and I’ll continue to share what I learn.

The Bigger Picture

Life is a series of spiritual lessons that we’ll keep repeating until we’re ready for the next set of lessons. The earth is a school. We are here to learn. And we learn by doing.

There is a wealth of knowledge that can be learned from books, and insights to be derived from meditation and other spiritual practices.

But even when life doesn’t always afford us the time or the convenience of those luxuries we can still make rapid progress on the path through developing our awareness and attention.

Because of all the many spiritual practices we get to choose from, there is none more effective than an intentional life.

“Since everything that happens to us, without exception, offers opportunity for grace, reality itself is holy. So every time we face reality, rather than deny or oppose it, we are being deeply spiritual.”

-David Richo

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this article please be sure to ❤️ it so others can find it too. And what’s been your experience with spiritual practices? Let us know in the comment section…and so we can cover in future posts!

And thank you to all who support financially. Even $5/month has a weird way of prompting me to write more articles and publish more frequently. If you feel drawn to support this writing, thank you. I never take it for granted.

If you enjoyed this perspective please share with any friends or family members who might share these interests.

Reorder: Deconstruction & Higher-Consciousness Christianity currently has a small audience of only a few hundred readers. If you found this topic valuable please join our mailing list as we explore these and other important insights.

Wishing you all an awesome week ahead!