Five Spiritual Tips by Linda Lauren

Another year has opened up, along with another opportunity to grow with the positive energy available to us.  Most of us remember to take care of the mind and the body, but we often neglect to tend to the Spirit, and yet it is the spirit that moves our daily lives on in  terms of positive and negative. I believe that is because there is confusion as to what the spirit is and what role it plays in the big picture. Most people understand the Spirit to be something they can not touch that is often defined through our faith and only practiced when we visit a house of worship.

Your Spirit is much more than that. It is the essence of who you are. It defines you and molds the personality. It is the factor that is responsible for the emotions you embrace and the moods you have in your life. Whether you respond or react, which are two very different things,  is really up to your spirit. So it's very important that you understand that that essence feeds your morale. When you are sad, that is the Spirit feeling sad. That in turn makes you think sad thoughts  and you become depressed. That sadness overwhelms you and eventually affects your body and it creates a dis-ease. Your Spirit is the universal life force within you and it is responsible for who you are and how you live. Keeping your Spirit up is a way to a healthy life. Here are some  tips to start you off:

Minimize your intake of news - be careful how you are feeding your spirit.  Nourish it with what you need to know rather than gorge on an appetite of what can fast become an abundant menu of negativity.

Meditation -  Take the time to make an appointment with yourself and sit quietly in your bedroom or private space. Put a Do Not Disturb sign on your door, sit down in a comfy chair in comfortable clothing and relax. Close your eyes and just BREATHE slowly. Allow yourself to focus on your breathing rhythm. If you take time out to meditate at least 10 to 20 minutes a day you will detox the body from the bad stress.  It also allows us time to reflect on either the day at hand, or the day we just left. It is an invaluable  tool that is known for lowering blood pressure as well as allowing us to process our waking world in a less reactionary way.  In short, meditation helps us hear ourselves think.

Social media & Message boards- Let's face it, it is a fact of daily life. But try to hold off on computer reading  when you first wake up in the morning. Open your day with laughter, joy or a smile. Even in the face of sadness and adversity there is always hope. For me, that might take the form of a funny blooper video one day, or a song that speaks to my soul (or rocks it!) the next.

Think about switching up your focus away from computers, phones and tablets so they are  not  the first thing you embrace when you wake, unless it is to share something positive that can't wait. Keep in mind: Nothing can dampen the spirit more deeply than the subliminal rants that run through social media streams, whether you read them or not, the message is still felt and can affect you.

Be mindful of your words - Whether that is in person, in text, email or some sort of  post or comment, it is important to your own well-being that you express yourself the way you want to be expressed to, because like truly attracts like.

Shields Up -  Last, but most important is to surround your body within an imaginary tube of green healing light, much like the green teleport tube in the old Star Trek television show of the 1960s.  Use your personal powers of creative visualization to envision this tube as having mirrors facing out so that any negativity ricochets and reflects back out to the universe, dissipating and not hurting anyone.

To paraphrase the late Vernon Linwood Howard (American spiritual teacher, author and philosopher): "what gets your attention gets you." So perhaps it would be a good idea to open your year with these five spiritual tips in play. Maybe what we should be doing is to make a conscious effort to not focus on things we can't change, but to focus on living our lives to create change from what already have that we can make a difference with.