Over the past two months I have covered all the various types of self-care, but one. And, that’s spiritual self-care. I guess I was saving it for last, because there are so many myths about the spirit and how one can perform self-care.
In this week’s post, I hope to shed some light on spiritual self-care, identify a few practices you can do today, and list some further resources available, to make your spiritual resolutions come to pass this year.
Spiritual Self-Care, an Overview
Spiritual self-care can be a wide variety of practices and unique to each person, because we’re dealing with our inner and outer world. Generally, the “spirit” is considered the part of you that cannot be defined by the body, mind and emotions. But, that sounds like a limiting belief in yourself and spirit. Spirit comes from the Latin word for breath, and can be understood as the spark that makes you alive. You can use the analogy of glue; it’s the substance that connects your body, mind and emotions together. You can’t sense it unless you bring your spiritual being into awareness as your whole self, not just the undefined parts of yourself.
At the same time, religion is often bound to our spiritual being because we are typically raised in a religion and culture based on our family and geography. And, our spiritual life isn’t always explicitly and exclusively exercised within our religious or cultural practices. So, I encourage you to think about practices that can be done in harmony with them.
For example, meditation is often considered when discussing spiritual self-care to help one connect with the spirit. The same can be translated to prayer for religions that practice prayer as a ritual. Some beliefs are that prayers are you speaking to a higher power, while meditation is you listening to the higher power’s response.
Further, spiritual practices can be nonreligious in nature, and not conflict with your religion at all. While meditation again is a great example, so is yoga (founded on Ayurvedic Science but not mutually exclusive to other belief systems), doing a gut biome cleanse, going on a digital detox, and more. There are a vast array of practices, with some creativity, that can spur your spirit into the foreground of your consciousness.
While you usually contemplate your spirit solo, you can do it in community as well. You and your spouse/partner, you and your child(ren), and even you and a friend(s) can get together and embark on a spiritual hike together. You can read a spiritual book together, such as The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle; perhaps you can join a spiritual book club that reads a wide variety of literature connected to the divine. If there isn’t such a book club, talk to your local library about starting one!
I think one of the best strategies for spiritual self-care starts with defining time each week to sit down and journal about what you believe about your spiritual self. Give yourself 30, 60, even 90 minutes each week to do so, and fill up pages (digitally or on paper) with your thoughts. After a few weeks when you feel like you have exhausted this exercise, consider what you have learned about yourself. Consider where you might want to explore your spiritual being that might be yet uncovered. Then, from there, you can map out a plan for what types of practices and independent or group activities you will engage in in pursuit of your own spiritual journey. The spiritual self-care plan writes itself in that way.
Spiritual Self-Care Resources
Spiritual self-care is routinely written about as an offshoot of mental or emotional health, but life itself and its connection to the divine in you is a whole component of your being. You owe it to yourself to reach deeply within your being and learn to love your spirit as much as you give attention to, say, your skin. You wash it, moisturize it, protect it with clothing, etc. Your spirit needs the same care as the largest organ that covers your body. Here is a list of spiritual resources below that will get you moving in the direction of spiritual self-care.
Start your spiritual self-care journey with the wonderful message from Rev. Cynthia James on how self-care is a spiritual practice, flipping the paradigm to make self-care more fruitful for you.
The Chopra Center’s 10 Spiritual Self-Care Tips You Need to Know states, “Your spirituality may be found in the tenets of your religion or lay in the beauty of nature. Whatever fulfills and sustains you, your spirituality needs tending.” These 10 spiritual self-care tips, hinted at above, are good places to begin brainstorming your spiritual self-care routine. I especially like practicing gratitude and forgiveness; you can add random acts of kindness too!
Mental Health America provides a great set of practices no matter your religious beliefs on how to Take Care of Your Spirit.
These resources should get you started on your new year’s spiritual self-care practices.
Where to Start With Spiritual Self-Care
As always, if you need more spiritual self-care than you believe you can provide yourself, seek help. You can reach out to Four Directions Wellness for services.
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Is spiritual self-care the area of your life that you are focusing on this year, this month, or even this week? Let me know in the comments and how you plan to connect and nourish your spirit this year.