Posted by: Jan on June 29, 2008
Categories: Spiritual Exercises // Comments Off on Five Easy Steps to Transform Anything into a Spiritual Exercise
Mindful living and soul-centered giving are great spiritual exercises.
They’re as obvious as baking cookies for a fundraiser or helping flood victims clean out their basements. Whether you’re on the phone at the volunteer headquarters or making sandwiches in the mobile kitchen, you’re on the front line of everyday spirituality.
Now turn any task or circumstance into a spiritual exercise with these five easy steps:
1. Bring a happy energy.
If you chose to be there, then do whatever needs to be done. Be there whole-heartedly and participate graciously. Share a positive attitude and an uplifting energy with everyone else in the situation.
2. Own your boundaries.
Know yourself and your limitations. Respect your capabilities and resources. Reach out with your time and effort. At the end of the day, give yourself permission to know that you gave it your best.
3. Be a compassionate listener.
This is not the time for you to criticize someone, or to complain about why this hour of need is here. Let your presence be a comfort and a shoulder to lean on. Let the survivors and victims get their story out. Give them the hope they need by listening to them and being there for them.
4. Practice grateful mindfulness.
Throughout the day, pause and look around you. Become aware of and appreciate what you do have – a safe place to live, something to eat, clothes to wear. Consciously feel yourself inside your body – you are alive, you are well, you are even more than all this.
5. Keep all things in perspective.
At any moment, say to the nasty stuff that shows up in life: “This too shall pass.” Perhaps that moment of relief and perspective can help you through the worst of it. At any moment, say to the best times in your life: “This too shall pass.” Then mindfully enjoy it even more and savor it down in the depths of your very being.
Focus on one or more of these five easy steps and you can transform anything into a spiritual exercise. It’s not what you do that makes it spiritual. It’s how you do it – coming out of your essence as soul rather than out of your ego – that makes it spiritual.
Janice M. Puta
Author of Pathways: Tales for the Spiritual Seeker
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