The gradual development of spiritual growth takes place as a result of an earnest, consistent commitment over time. Most people experience a deeper form of spiritual development through habitual daily activities that shape our thoughts, feelings, values, and our response to the world around us rather than through sudden transformations.
For many people today, their search for spiritual growth and development is outside of organized religion or traditional ways of practicing one’s beliefs.
How does the state of mind effect your Spiritual Growth?
The mental preparation we make at the beginning of each day will have a significant impact on our spiritual development.
They state that silence helps cultivate clarity, compassion and emotional discipline which in turn supports mindfulness in day-to-day activity.
Calm morning practices also enhance repeated development of emotional resilience. Calm morning practices provide an individual with support during unexpected times of stress, and therefore through repetitive practice create a sustainable base for supporting the other daily habits a person engages in.
Calm Morning Practices and Inner Balance
There are a number of simple morning practices that develop inner balance by creating structure without the pressure of performance.
Calm morning practices do not require long meditation practices or rigid routines; rather, calm morning practices are often simply small actions performed regularly, with the consistency of the practice of awareness vs. the pursuit of perfection or performance.
Through these calm morning practices, individuals will be able to limit their mental clutter and support their emotional responses throughout the day; therefore, they prepare their minds to be able to live in a more thoughtful and present way throughout their daily responsibilities.
Daily Habits That Develop Awareness Through Mindful Living
Mindful living is the practice of or being aware of daily activities, not just special events. When a person is willing to be intentional and focused on moments that are already part of their daily experience, the practice of mindful living will not take longer than doing the task but rather will use the tasks as repetitive opportunities for the practice of awareness.
As the development of this physical awareness continues, it will enhance the individual’s emotional awareness as well as providing greater emotional stability and patience.
Routine Times as a Way of Building Mindfulness
This style of mindfulness helps support inner balance, while maintaining personal productivity. The habitual development of presence allows for the calming of emotional responses.
The result is that one is more clear-headed and grounded in their interactions with others on a daily basis.
Simple Practices That Promote Effective Daily Habits
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Not sitting at the table with a smartphone during meals and short breaks.
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Only utilizing social media during set times.
Self Reflection and Spiritual Development
In order to develop spiritually, an individual must be aware of their thoughts, feelings and actions.
Through self reflection, a person is able to become aware of their habitual reactions (and the circumstances that prompted the reactions) that often govern behavior at an unconscious level. Recognising one’s habitual reactions allows for an understanding of how habitual reactions affect a person’s inner balance.
Without self reflection, daily habits tend to be based on autopilot and unaligned with an individual’s values. Intentional reflection enables an individual to assess their actions objectively and evaluate the reasons behind those actions. In so doing, intentional reflection nurtures mindful living by aligning actions to beliefs.
The study of Self Observation and the Development of Inner Patterns and Reactions
Reflection Strategies for Emotional Balance
Create habits of daily gratitude
Habits of gratitude are often perceived as being very simple to integrate into a person’s daily routine. A small act of gratitude that is consistently performed over time tends to be viewed by the individual as having greater meaning.
An individual should be intentional about expressing gratitude to others.
All of these daily gratitude habits create a sense of emotional awareness and decrease the individual’s amount of stress. These daily gratitude habits also help develop a more spiritual practice over time.
How Do I Develop Inner Balance Through Healthy Boundaries?
Healthy Boundaries Assist In Building Inner Balance.
To build an inner balance, an individual must have the ability to create healthy boundaries. If an individual has difficulty creating healthy boundaries, there is a risk of losing his or her ability to build inner balance and create a higher degree of spiritual growth due to the constant drain of the emotional energy of others.
Clear boundaries create the opportunity for an individual to develop healthy reflections of themselves and recover emotionally.
Protect Your Emotional And Mental Energy
Experts from the World Health Organization and other professional organizations have continually stressed the importance of establishing balance in a person’s life as a means of promoting mental well-being through stress management and workload management. These principles are aligned closely with spiritual growth.
Additionally, Healthy boundaries also establish respect for an individual’s personal values.
Balance your life guilt-free
You don’t have to schedule a huge change to establish your borders – incremental, uniform habits build your borders softly and improve your emotional stability.
Here are helpful habits for setting your borders:
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Refuse all unneeded commitments.
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Schedule time for yourself without expectations.
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Deem your emotions when dealing with negative experiences with energy drainers.
They will equip you for more intensive and thoughtful spiritual practices. This philosophy finds its way into spiritual growth.
Simple Habits of Daily Movement to Establish Balance
Mindful Movement can take place anywhere and at any time..
Mindful Movement can be any type of physical activity you enjoy. It does not require an intense workout, a long- burnout-type fitness class, or the ability to run for 30 minutes straight.Simple actions that are consistently followed will produce better results than the performance-based approach.
The focus should be placed on being aware rather than performing.
Grow Spiritually Through Intentional Reading
Read a few pages of books each day that offer spiritual insight or reflection
Highlight any idea that provides an opportunity for self-awareness Take brief pauses to consider the key ideas of the reading
All three steps of this process will help develop mindful thinking and obtain a deeper understanding of yourself, which will help develop an individual’s capacity for deeper spiritual reflection.
Conscious Breathing Assist with Maintaining Inner Balance
Why Conscious Breathing Assists with Spiritual Growth
Breathing consciously calms the nervous system and allows a person to achieve a higher level of personal growth by allowing the person to live mindfully.
Breathing slowly and mindfully decreases the reactivity of your mind. It provides you space between the thought and reaction, which allows for emotional balance and increases self-awareness.
Awareness as a Method to Regulate Emotions
Medical Associations like Cleveland Clinic cite various ways in which breathing techniques assist with lowering stress.
Breathing has a direct impact upon an individual’s emotional health, and through this method of emotional regulation, an individual can naturally achieve increased spiritual growth.
Natural Breathing Practices Daily
Utilization of Breathing During Your Daily Life
Using breathing techniques does not require a great deal of time or effort to be effective.
Mindful awareness does not need to be formal and can occur throughout the day in short but effective ways.
Regularity and consistency are more important than the time spent practicing the act of breathing.
Breathing techniques that may be beneficial for the individual are:
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Taking deep breaths slowly before beginning any task
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Pausing to take a deep breath in times of high-stress
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Taking several minutes to take calm breaths before going to bed
When practiced regularly, these breathing techniques will help the individual maintain emotional clarity and self- awareness and help to smooth the transition into deeper reflective practices.
Building Mindful Social Connections
A person’s spiritual development and spirituality can be greatly impacted by their social connections with other people.
When a person is able to connect with another on a healthy level, they have the opportunity to practice being mindful through being present and practicing listening.
The more a person is able to engage with another person on a meaningful level, the less distracted they will be, and the greater level of aware they will have.
Building connections does not necessarily require constant contact with others. However, some intentional habits can lead to improved connection, which will result in increased emotional awareness.
Creating Intentional Daily Habits for Emotional Connection
Creating a connection between two individuals by creating intentional daily habits can build connection.
Some daily habits that can build a connection with another person include:
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Engaging in active listening without interrupting
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Emotional checking of one another
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Expressing appreciation or encouragement regularly to one another
By intentionally practicing a daily habit of creating an emotional connection with another individual, the connection that the two individuals have on an emotional level will enhance the understanding of the other person, as well as be an aid to other spiritual practices.
Supporting a person’s spiritual growth through awareness of their digital life
googleapis.com/web-api-media-uploads/media/tmpfpk9i_jr_c989802712/tmpfpk9i_jr_c989802712.png” />Digital forms of communication and technology will affect how the person learns as well as the manner by which they focus their attention throughout the day.
Without the capability to be aware of what is occurring in their digital lives, a person can be negatively affected by being connected digitally on an ongoing basis and lose their opportunity to focus and maintain their emotional balance, and thus impeding their spiritual growth.
However, by managing their own digital habits as individuals, it allows a person to remain focused and be emotionally balanced and positively affect their spiritual growth.
Managing attention in the digital age
Companies including Google are developing solutions to help manage the increased use of devices and the potential for excessive screen time to create an imbalance in one’s daily life.
Digital Wellness helps maintain digital balance by creating awareness around the way we manage our attention.
By managing the excessive amounts of technology we are exposed to and used during a given day, we also discover ways to clarify our emotions and/or thoughts, as well as create a space within us to reflect on what we have done and how to think about that information.
This creates a more balanced way to grow spiritually.
Some habits include:
Strengthening Our Inner Balance through Purposeful Action
Aligning Values with Daily Action
Mahatma Gandhi and other Leaders are excellent examples of how living your life according to your values strengthens you spiritually.
These examples remain true today.
Additionally, Purposeful Action strengthens Emotional Stability.
Purposeful Action provides a sense of direction during uncertain times, thus strengthening our Inner Balance.
Daily Habits to Create Purposeful Action
Purpose does not need to be based on major accomplishments.
Small daily actions reflect Purpose, and the most important factor is consistency.
Daily Habits which are Helpful to Your Spirit
These are some of the helpful habits that one can practice on a daily basis.
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Daily Value-Based Intentionality –
Create a daily intention that is based on the value(s) you have established in your life. -
Daily Action/Based Reflection on Beliefs
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Daily Awareness of Compassion in Your Response to Challenging Situations
Compassionate Service Leads to Spiritual Growth
Compassionate service provides for living in a mindful way, where your actions are based on your feelings for others and on what your intention is.
It provides you with a time of mindfulness during which you can experience emotional clarity, and be able to bring about balance within your emotional self.
When your awareness is expanded beyond your own personal self, then your spiritual growth develops.
For example, organizations like Red Cross use service as a means of responding to human needs.
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Helping someone without any expectation of recognition
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Volunteering for a small amount of time on a regular basis
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Being kind, supporting or compassionate through a simple action
Letting go of resistance
Acceptance is an important aspect of your spiritual development because it helps to decrease your inner conflict with yourself.
When you resist your own reality, you create greater levels of emotional stress upon your body and mind.
The ideas that are promoted by these teachers promote the spiritual growth of individuals.
Developing the skill of acceptance decreases the level of frustration and anxiety that you might experience.
In addition, the ability to accept things allows you to transition into periods of change with less difficulty because you are creating flexibility within yourself.
This increased flexibility creates a greater level of balance within you.
Providing daily habits that support acceptance
Acceptance is a skill that can develop with the help of repeated conscious practice.
Developing small daily habits that allow you to develop acceptance will create greater ease in developing acceptance over time.
During this process, patience is important.
The following daily habits may facilitate the development of acceptance:
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Accepting situations as they are without making immediate judgments
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Allowing your emotions to be felt in their entirety without controlling how they are experienced
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Creating a new perspective by reframing how you view a situation or experience
