Establishing Your Spiritual Practice

The bedrock of your evolution is the practice you establish today. 

To begin, let’s acknowledge together that nothing else matters except this moment. Right now. You, reading this. 

All other moments are either in the past or the future. The past is gone, you have no power there. The future hasn’t happened yet, you have no power there. 

What you do with this moment determines the next moment and the moment after that. 

This matters because we’re releasing any energy that has been directed into the past—regret, sorrow, guilt or shame—and bringing it into this moment where we have the power to do something with our energy. We release, as well, any focus on what will come next—our dreams, our desires, our hopes. They’re a distraction and an energy-suck and so we’re no longer going to succumb to that specific programming.

At least, for now. We’ll return to our programs over and over again until we have rewritten them with new programs that create a healthy inner universe. While it may seem like constantly daydreaming about the future is only a great thing, it’s not. The mind that automatically runs happy dreams of the future will also uncontrollably drift into its fears for the future, undoing any positive visualization that you’ve sent into the universe. The goal, therefore, is to become aware and to only unleash your hopeful dreams during moments of awareness. 

The practice—spiritual or otherwise, and you can call it metaphysical or mindfulness or anything you want—brings you into the moment. That is its power and it’s the key that will liberate you from every form of enslavement you’ve devised for yourself. 

Practice is anything you establish as a form of connecting with your inner world. Of course there are other definitions for this word for other purposes, such as learning an instrument or training to become a ballerina or a gymnast or a boxer. 

But this specific practice informs everything else you do in your life.

As your new journey unfolds, you will find yourself aligning with the things that resonate best with you. You’ll adopt a new habit and discard another, or you’ll decide one that you thought seemed promising is no longer delivering what you need or desire. 

That’s totally OK, because part of the experience is discovering a balance between structure (a masculine trait) and flow (a feminine trait). These two characteristics need each other. Without flow, we struggle to evolve and grow, without structure, we struggle to hold to a path. Both are integral to the journey. 

There are as many types of practice as there are people in the universe.

Some people wake up each morning and say a prayer, then retire at night with another prayer. That is a practice.

When I began to realize I had made myself a practice, everything changed. I’d been doing it unintentionally, and while there’s nothing technically wrong with that, bringing consciousness and intention to things imbues them with more power.

You’re carving out a ritualistic space, in a sense, where you allow your mind to relax its grip on things of this world, which includes anything that you may label postive or negative. So, the practice is the structure or form, and once you’re within the space of that form, you move into flow. 

I hope this makes sense. You can think of the practice like a glass jar of whatever shape you choose. It holds something formless like water within it, giving that flowing element shape. Practice allows space for you to be in the moment. 

Now that I’ve defined practice in a way that I hope gives you a sense of its purpose, let’s discuss a few techniques that you could experiment with and adopt as your daily practice. You may already be doing one or two of these, which is great. If they’re working for you and you’re happy with how they expand your consciousness, continue to do them. If you’d like to try something different, test it out and see how you like it. You’re the master of your universe. 

1. Meditation. As I’ve explained elsewhere on my website, meditation is the cornerstone for your spiritual practice. It’s the only way towards true liberation, healing, and anything else related to the self. You cannot avoid yourself forever, which is what many of us end up doing by always doing without awareness of what we’re doing or what we’re avoiding inside us. As they say, you can run, but you can’t hide—especially not from yourself. It will catch up to you eventually. So, be brave by pausing and meditating. 

2. Toning. Toning is something that’s often done during meditation where you produce a vocal sound and sustain it. The vibration of the sound reverberates througout the body and can create pleasant, even healing, sensations. If you’re familiar with the sounds of Tibetan Buddhist monks saying, “Om,” then you’ve heard toning. 

3. Pranayama. This is a practice that focuses on the breath, which is life. Like many of these techniques, pranayama is an ancient Indian yogic method for expanding consciousness through regulation of the breath. The way we breathe moves energy throughout the body (this has been shown to truly move the cerebrospinal fluid from the sacrum to the brain and vice versa) and if you incorporate this into your practice, the results will be immediately apparent. Guided pranayama sessions can be as short as ten minutes, so it’s a great addition to any existing practice. 

4. Yoga. There many types of yoga, and it’s no wonder because the practice goes back thousands of years to the Indian Vedas. Many branches have formed, from simply meditative breathing styles to forms that incorporate movement. Many in the Western world are unfamiliar with the sacred and spiritual roots of this practice. I was one of them. Though I had done it during high school, and at various other points in my life, the most recent time I began practicing it again, I was looking for pain relief from a writing injury (yes, writing! Sitting at a desk and typing isn’t what the body is made for). Little did I know how it would crack my life like a nutshell. Research the type that suits you best. 

5. Qigong. I know very little about this practice, but I have seen it used to balance people’s lives through practices similar to yoga. A good friend of mine practices qigong daily. While there are similarities to yoga, from what I can tell, qigong views the lifeforce energy (qi or chi) as spread throughout the body, while yoga positions it at the base of the spine as a coiled serpent. The aim of qigong and tai chi seems to be to channel the energy through movement and flowing techniques and poses. 

6. Prayer. Let’s not forget the simple practice of daily prayer. During my atheist/agnostic years, I didn’t pray and I didn’t really see myself ever adopting the practice again. But Yogananda’s self-realization course introduces prayer before meditation. So, I started doing that with the intent that I’d stop someday. I didn’t believe in god or really in Source energy. Eventually I realized this practice of daily gratitude before my meditation opens the heart space (or chakra). It’s the highest place to manifest from, in my opinion. So now I do it daily. I’m not here to dictate how to pray, I will just say that for me it is a practice of gratitude to the universe and nothing more. I don’t ask for things. 

7. Breathwork. Though pranayama is one type of breathwork, there are many others. One type is called tummo breathing (“inner fire”) which comes from Tibetan Buddhism, and Wim Hof’s breathing practice is similar to tummo breathing. In yoga there is “breath of fire” which is part of kundalini yoga. So, look for the form that suits you best. Some are more forceful and some are subtle and methodical. It will come down to what your desire and intent is. 

Now that you know a few options for how to create a spiritual practice, my hope is that you’ll find something inspiring for you. 

I want to clarify that when I say “spiritual” I don’t mean anything related to religion. From my perspective, a human is made up of the physical body, a thing of Earth, and the soul, a thing of energy. The soul is eternal, the body will die. The spirit = soul. So these practices are meant to awaken the soul and begin to restore who you were when you were first born into this life. 

Only you know who that is, but I can say that that person is a combination of the soul and the genetics of the body. It forms the ego, which creates a personality. As you advance on your healing journey, you’ll discover more of who the original you is as you ascend and re-merge with your soul. 

If that doesn’t make sense now, know that the more you meditate, practice, and awaken, the more you’ll understand all things. Prior knowledge that went to sleep as you became more embedded in the 3D matrix will return to your awareness. Boundaries will dissolve and the scales will fall from your eyes. 

It’ll be pretty great! 

–Nicole