Working on Wellness: Entry One

Photo Credit: Dan Leisen 

We are all yearning for wellness in these unparalleled times. Some people are eating raw fermented vegetables.  Others are exercising regularly, or working on relationships more intently.  What we cannot ignore is that spiritual wellness is also a significant driver toward living well and fully.

Being spiritually well asks us to develop a spiritual practice in which we open up to something larger than ourselves.  When we do this, we expand our horizon in much the way a wide angle lens does, or the ability to see across the horizon as you stand on a plain.  I have a photograph of some daffodils that are persistently growing out of a rocky, rough terrain.  The photographer chose to not focus on the soil as he shows this scene.  Instead the angle is from the ground up so that the background is a beautiful blue, sunny, clear day with large puffy white clouds in the sky.  The background of blue sky against the yellow daffodils helps the beholder to draw focus away from the challenged soil to a wider horizon and even to the sky.  In the same way, our spiritual practice widens our lens of acknowledging beauty in our lives.

Spiritual practice is not drudgery, far from it.  Choose something that gives you joy!  Perhaps use Marie Kondo’s method of determining worthiness: “does this practice spark joy for me?”  One person’s joyful practice may be whistling while doing the dishes.  Another person’s practice may be reading the Psalms.  And yet another may do t’ai chi.   The important thing is to maintain consistency, and to allow yourself to have this time without interruption.  

There is no agenda in a spiritual practice, and different things may happen each time.  I find it helpful to keep a journal about my spiritual practices, to sort of track how I am deepening in the progress. In this way, you will acknowledge your learning and your growth as your spiritual practice transforms you.

May you contribute to yours and others’ wellness by moving down the path of having a spiritual practice in your life.  Think creatively about what yours may be.