Experiencing a spiritual awakening through the guidance and love that positive people enjoy is fantastic to enhance your well-being. Believe it or not, a spiritual connection can help extend your life and improve its quality.
Whether you feel a general sense of something greater than yourself or follow an organized religious practice, connecting spiritually brings clarity of purpose, peace of spirit, and the strength to carry on to millions of people worldwide.
7 Things That Can Cause A Spiritual Awakening
1. Choosing to believe in a positive, guiding divinity
A study of religious struggle and mortality in sick, elderly patients found that positive spirituality made a difference for people living longer. They identified these positive religious behaviors that people can engage in that help them to live longer:
- Seeking spiritual support or connection
- Collaboration with God in problem-solving
- Religious forgiveness
- Benevolent religious appraisals of their illness
Researchers found that not only do positive spiritual practices increase longevity, but that negative religious coping or struggling with spirituality was associated with a higher risk of mortality.
The ‘negative’ religious coping thoughts that the researchers studied included:
- Belief in a punishing God
- Fighting with friends and family about religious beliefs
- Fear of demons, evil spirits, or curses
- Spiritual discontent
- Questioning God’s powers
2. Forgiving easily
Let go of past wrongs that have been done to you. Cheated out of money? Left at the altar? Deadbeat second parent? Whoever or whatever caused you a setback in the past gave you a fantastic life lesson.
Everything that made you who you are is part of your past, and it was all-important to get you to this moment where you are now. Love everything about your history, even the pain.
3. Allowing yourself to grieve when you need to
The pain of loss and hurt you have experienced is an emotional way to strengthen your spiritual connection. Allowing yourself to feel sadness means accepting the wrong thing that happened to you and pouring the pain out in tears.
When we grieve and suffer from depression, we focus on the past. Releasing the sadness is a process that lets you connect with what happened in the past, grieve, and move forward to live in the present moment once again.
The pain of loss is a way to connect to the spiritual because this is also a part of the life that we live as spiritual beings. The risk is that dwelling on pain leads to a negative spiral of suffering and depression challenging to climb out of. Grieve with a community to help avoid stagnating in grief.
4. Reaffirming your core beliefs and values
Focus on what feels right, sound, and proper to you in your gut. Those are the essential things to you. Take action to support honesty, justice, respect, and loving care toward your fellow man and woman. Find a spiritual bond in your community by serving others or by embracing those around you who have similar spiritual beliefs.
Creating a community of spirit, forming spiritual bonds, or the concept of ‘soul’ as the Black community uses the word, is a way of engaging with others through music, laughter, food, language, and even commerce to meet the needs of the group as well as those of the individual. This spiritual culture is a way of supporting each other through shared faith and shared values.
A study in the Journal of Community Psychology defined this spiritual connection this way; “a sense of community is a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through a commitment to be together.”
5. Being generous with giving
Most faiths worldwide share the common belief that being generous to others is a spiritual gift that you can give, which also helps strengthen your spiritual connection.
Connecting to others, learning about their needs, and helping them where we can is a way of supporting the community around us. A positive emotional connection to others is a way to strengthen your spiritual side.
6. Receiving generously
Beliefnet.com says ‘Your faith is a gift of grace, and you get to choose if you want to receive it or not. But once you learn to surrender, and allow yourself to open up, then faith will only multiple and manifest itself in your life more, not less.’ Accept, rather than turn away from a gift of grace.
7. Being fully present in each moment
The present is a gift, and it is the easiest and most challenging way to strengthen your spiritual connection. Being present is difficult because of the tendency to be focused on what is next. What is now is so much more enlightening spiritually.
How to Care For Yourself During a Spiritual Awakening
It’s important to practice self-care and introspection when going through a spiritual awakening. Growing spiritually requires immense inner work and solitude to eliminate the distractions of the busy, chaotic world. So, if you feel a calling to rediscover your higher self, follow these tips below.
1. Reconnect with Nature
Earth’s wild places offer some of the best sanctuaries in the modern world. When you reconnect with our beautiful planet, it awakens something within you. You feel more alive and in tune with yourself after spending time in the forest or mountains.
After all, we came from nature, so it makes sense that we would have a spiritual connection to Mother Earth. That doesn’t mean you can’t find inspiring places to explore your inner self within cities. However, many people feel more like themselves in nature since they can leave behind the stresses of everyday life. Nature also isn’t as distracting and chaotic as cities or urban areas.
So, to care for yourself properly during a spiritual awakening, escape into the great outdoors as often as possible. There’s no WiFi, but you’ll experience a more significant connection nonetheless.
2. Eat a Healthy Diet
Speaking of nature, eating foods straight from the source will positively impact your spirituality. Light, fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables improve digestion and eliminate toxins from the body. Making your physical body lighter makes it easier to connect with your astral and causal bodies. After all, most people’s primary goal of a spiritual awakening is to experience higher consciousness.
Therefore, eating the simplest foods possible will eliminate restlessness in the body and allow you to explore higher realms. A healthy diet will get you closer to your spiritual goals, whether you do this through meditation, yoga, prayer, or deep breathing.
3. Get Plenty of Rest
Having a spiritual awakening causes your whole outlook on life to shift overnight. Old belief systems and limited ways of thinking fly out the window, leaving you with a fresh perspective. You may not resonate with your life anymore and long for something more profound. This process will inevitably take a toll on you as you discover a grander truth to life.
During a spiritual awakening, it’s crucial to rest as much as you need to assimilate these new realizations. Prioritize sleep, have a self-care routine, and go easy on yourself. You may find that your nine to five routine doesn’t resonate with you anymore and decide to become self-employed. Many spiritual people don’t find fulfillment in routine jobs, so don’t judge yourself for wanting something different.
Above all else, do what feels right for you, and don’t overexert yourself chasing money or material things. The spiritual world offers far greater rewards, anyway.
4. Maintain a Daily Practice
Maybe you can’t ignore your responsibilities or leave a full-time job at the moment. Thankfully, living in a monastery or a secluded cave isn’t necessary to have a spiritual awakening. You can still incorporate your meditation or other spiritual practices into daily life. Set aside time to devote to your spiritual growth each morning and evening. Whether you have 15 minutes or an hour, use this time to concentrate on your higher self fully.
Staying persistent and disciplining yourself will help you grow whether you live a worldly life or decide to become a monk. Either way, you’ll have to hold yourself accountable and remain consistent to see the results of your practice.
5. Show Yourself Compassion
Many people who go through a spiritual awakening have no idea what’s happening to them. Suddenly, the world isn’t what it seemed anymore, and it takes time to process. When you see through the veneer of material life, the activities and events on Earth don’t seem to matter as much. You may scold yourself for feeling lax in other areas of your life as you embark on a spiritual journey.
While we need to attend to our duties, it’s okay to pull back for a while. Concentrate on your spiritual awakening if that’s what you feel drawn to, and have compassion for yourself. The spiritual path requires a life-long commitment, and progress will happen slowly.
Many people think that growth happens in a linear fashion, but it looks more like a rollercoaster. You’ll have plenty of ups and downs, and you may have periods where you don’t feel as spiritual. No matter what, love yourself where you’re and don’t force anything. Enjoy the journey and go with the flow, wherever your soul may take you.
6. Reevaluate Your Friend Circle
When you have a spiritual awakening, you’ll want to spend a lot alone. You may not resonate with your old group of friends anymore due to your shift in interests. Even so, you can politely decline their invitations to hang out or explain your feelings upfront. Sometimes, we have to love people from a distance if we’re on different paths in life.
As you move further along the spiritual path, you may want to surround yourself with teachers and mentors. It’s essential to find a guru or leader who can guide you down the spiritual path and support your journey.
Final Thoughts on Having a Spiritual Awakening
A spiritual awakening is one of the essential aspects of existence in this earthly realm. While we’re in physical bodies, our primary goal is to grow spiritually and work out karma. This process takes many lifetimes, but yoga and meditation can help speed things up. During a spiritual awakening, many people feel drawn to practices such as these to discover their true selves beneath all the layers. Remember to give yourself grace during a spiritual journey and listen to your intuition. It will guide you down the right path if you quiet your mind and trust your heart.
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