Spirituality

Beginning:

I first heard of mindfulness as a bunch of hippy dribble as much as mainstream media at the time presented it. My interest bloomed in crystal healings, tarot readings and general paganism and witchcraft as it had popped up from time to time in my life through comments and social media feeds. I have Pinterest to largely thank for that. One thing I grew fond of and studied intensely is the 7 chakra teachings from the East. These really worked for me, it was all about becoming aligned in ones-self, our body, mind and soul. How I largely interpreted it was taking things at your own pace and not rushing into anything you do not feel ready for. The Root Chakra is all about building a base, while on the flip side the Crown Chakra is all about your higher being. This is one of the aspects I found most appealing. One of the main and most crucial messages that I took away from Spirituality is, “Do no harm, take no shit.” It’s a path I would encourage anyone to take if they are a journey of self-appreciation and peace. The 7 Chakra teachings I discovered I mixed into everything. My spirituality is a bit of a melting pot of ideals, from Buddhist to Hindu quite a lot of parts rolled into one. I found the Chakra teachings, a great pathfinder when navigating myself and my mentality. It centres around the understanding of yourself fully, finding your balance and understanding your body so you can find that self-trust and acceptance.  Each chakra gives you a balance to find within your mind; I personally focused a lot on the 3rd eye teachings of intuition, wisdom, the path towards enlightenment. Where-as others who follow these teachings may not follow one path so strongly, they may follow several. The 3rd eye is about achieving the best self. (My little conspiracy is that you are drawn to the chakra that is the same stage as your soul is at…) But that’s just my thoughts on the matter. This is the path I chose; I am still learning more each day about it!

Middle:

Spirituality was, and still is; the path that I chose when I began to start my understanding and building of self-acceptance. Most of the teachings are affirmations of you acknowledging who you are and the understanding that you have bad parts, and you have good parts. And that’s okay! You don’t need to be perfect in every way; it’s totally normal to have a set of teeth you don’t like. Or hip dips or having a stubborn streak (To name a few of my insecurities). Its normal to have differences and learning to appreciate that you are unique and not like others, but others are also unique and you should never take that away from them. I found it taught me that you don’t need to impress anyone in how you go about your life; Although you need to have everything in moderation and that’s the beauty of learning balance. A part of Spirituality, I most love is meditation. It is a great tool for my anxiety and learning to balance my energy within me, setting positive intentions and may be taking a moment to step back from a situation to realise it may not be as bad as it seems, or maybe I am downplaying something that is actually really unhealthy. I believe mediation is a non-invasive way for you to train your brain out of overthinking such menial things, to a degree it can be similar to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In that you are training your brain to think a specific way out of overthinking. Furthering on from mediation, most of my teachings did revolve around the universe and us. Listening, guiding and hearing those suggestions from it. I like to believe a guardian angel or spirit guide is watching over me. Some of the messages received can be found in number patterns such as angel numbers, which I will delve into another post soon. Or coincidences that are just timed so perfectly its hard to deny the existence of such thing. Part of the teachings of the universe was the idea of reincarnation which I found to be rather enlightening. It taught me to appreciate what I have and what I have been blessed with rather than lingering on the past. It taught me life is precious and that I shouldn’t take my time for granted. Learning that there are much more powerful forces at play than just my mental struggles was actually quite balancing I found but on the flip side I can see why some would struggle to view the world how I do. The realisation that there is no need to waste my short time hating myself when I have been given the gift of a healthy body and a strong soul – So why waste it?

Finally:

I practiced this for around 4 years, I started at the age of 17. My knowledge made me understand more of me and myself. About age 23 in 6 months it really excelled after I had a particularly awful relationship. It helped me past a lot of the trauma and realising that I am stronger than what I was put through and that I was not the one in the wrong. the journey of Self-love came shortly after. Self-love is being able to be happy with your-self, whether that’s through body-acceptance or self-neutrality. I think this is where I understood that I needed to not focus on all the bad bits and appreciate me as a whole human and not to compare to those around me.

Overall:

Spirituality is anyone’s journey and its unique to the individual who is practicing it and what things suit you the best. Its giving you confidence to know where your boundaries lie and, when you know when its time to tell someone to Fuck off! I like to live by the mentality of “Your soul is borrowed and when it is returned make sure it goes with a lifetime full of memories, not a lifetime full of sadness.”

I will drop some helpful links below for some articles that I took info from. Feel free to check out what I follow or if you would like some advice I’m more than happy to reply.