It’s one thing to know what you want to accomplish in life, to have an intellectual understanding about how you want to behave, (with compassion), how you want to feel, (joyous), and how you want to navigate the challenges of life (peacefully). But, often there is a disconnect between what we know intellectually and how we act and feel emotionally.
A daily spiritual practice can end that disconnect and leave you feeling and acting better. And I’m talking about things you can do right smack dab in the middle of your regular routine.
When there is a gap between our heart and our heads, we often fall back into our old bad habits and behave in ways we’d rather not and certainly won’t admit to during times of frustration or stress.
Later, we feel bad about that. We shake our heads and beat ourselves up wondering how we could know something, and even desire to do it, and still botch things with our own bad behavior.
Here’s how it sets up: You don’t want to freak out when your partner puts a completely empty milk jug back into the refrigerator for you to find the following milkless morning.
Huh, here’s an empty milk jug, in the fridge, ha, ha, you say to yourself, not a big deal.
Still on track, living with peace and compassion and kindness. Channeling compassion – after all, we all do stupid things – who cares right? I’m so grateful to have him in my life.
Then, HE walks into the room. And, immediately you feel the deep need to let him know what a stupid thing he did and by-the-way you have to do EVERYTHING and enough already!
Why do all those good thoughts of peace and love and stuff could come out in such a belligerent way when your buttons are pushed?. Why is it so hard to act spiritual even when you’re thinking spiritual thoughts?
Because you haven’t practiced enough. A piano player can’t simply think about playing a song they’ve got to actually do it time and time again before it’s perfected and memorized. Same with writing or painting or swimming or embroidery or anything. You don’t just pick it up by reading about it and thinking about it and aspiring to it. You’ve got to integrate it into your life, get used to it. You’ve got to practice. Spirituality is no exception – it takes doing.
And with the doing – the repetition and practice we do every day – we develop healthy habits that help us to be less reactive, kinder, and overall just happier in our daily lives.
This is the point of a spiritual practice. The more time you spend practicing mindfulness, meditation, compassion – the better you get at it and ultimately it becomes your way of life, your default behavior.
Instead of popping-off with a sarcastic comment you first go to a state of compassion or wonder. Instead of criticism, you get curious. Instead of fighting to be right, you opt for the peace that comes with patience and understanding. Instead of living with a stressful disconnect between heart and mind, you become whole and begin living from that powerful place.
This all starts with a daily practice. And that takes commitment – not always a lot of time, definitely doesn’t require money, but it does take a real commitment to do the practice.
On Wednesday, I’ll share my practices and offer tips to help you create your own so that you too can live closer to your higher self.
By the way, have you heard about my new class at the Daily Om? Reframe the Tough Times offers lesson and visualizations to help you thrive during times of change and uncertainty. Check it out here: http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=224&aff
Pre-order your copy now.
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