What I Learned About Spirituality

There was a time in my life when I wanted nothing to do with anything spiritual.

I was raised in church, attending at least three times a week, twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday nights.

My parents jumped church to church, trying to find the “perfect one”, so I went to more churches than I can possibly remember.

I saw and experienced a lot during that time. I also grew to resist anything spiritual at that time.

I eventually became an atheist and stopped believing in anything remotely spiritual. I wanted nothing to do with it.

I even went so far as to refuse that my parents take my young daughter to church on Sunday mornings because I feared she’d be brainwashed.

Then, years later, I was broken into a million pieces when I went through the hardest thing I had ever experienced in my entire life - the end of my nearly 20 year marriage and the end of the person I had become.

I was completely gutted. It was a time of death and rebirth for me, and I didn’t know how I would get through it.

I began searching for help. I went to therapy, then acupuncture, reiki, qigong and meditation.

I began to trade my power yoga classes for Kundalini yoga instead, and began to express interest in shamanic journeying and Native American traditions.

I felt like I had no idea who I was anymore. I was seeking to understand myself, my emotions, my experiences, my existence, my place in the world, and what it all meant.

I dove deep into various practices, diving deep within myself.

I purged and healed, I grew and evolved.

I began to have new experiences that I couldn’t quite explain. I began to feel something inside of myself that I couldn’t quite explain. I began to believe in something bigger than myself.

I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it. It took me a long time to let the egoic part of myself go, the part that just had to know what it is, had to identify it. Needed the science behind it, needed proof.

I now humbly realize that there is so much about this world, who we are, our place in the universe, and our connection to everyone and everything than we can possibly understand.

But more importantly, I realize that I don’t need to have all the answers. What I experience today, in this moment is all that matters.

My spiritual practice is just that - a practice of getting to know myself better, and my connection to everyone and everything.

Nature, the earth, has become my spiritual practice.

Meditation has become my spiritual practice.

Feeling my emotions, my body, my energy, and discovering more about how each play a significant role in my overall health and wellbeing is my spiritual practice.

However you find connection, and experience love and peace within is what matters - whatever that looks like to you.

We are all on our own journey in this lifetime, and what a curiously beautiful one it is.