Are you spiritually well? It is difficult to achieve true happiness and fulfillment without being spiritually well. Contrary to popular belief, spirituality is different from being religious. You can be religious but not spiritual. In the same way, you can be spiritual without being religious. A spiritual life means living a purposeful life. In order to achieve spiritual wellness, you must first understand some key concepts on spirituality. For starters, here are 10 spiritual wellness terms that you should know:
1.Purpose
Your purpose is your WHY, your reason for doing something or your reason for being. It is the main motivation of your life. What is the reason why you wake up in the morning? Your purpose gives you a sense of direction in life. It helps you create goals and make decisions. It influences your behavior in life. Without a sense of purpose, you are just like a puppet like Pinocchio aimlessly going through the motions in life without a sense of direction.
2.Love
Love is a feeling of tenderness, affection and attachment towards someone. Without love. you will feel empty. No matter how wealthy or successful you will become in life; everything will be fruitless if you have no one to share it with. A study done by Harvard University on what makes a good life confirms this. That love and relationships are the most important factors in achieving true happiness.
Love here does not only pertain to love for others. It is also about loving one’s self. Self love is all about acceptance of one’s self, not just the good traits but also the negative traits. It is treating oneself with kindness and respect. It is impossible to truly love another person if you don’t love yourself first.
3. Prosperity
The common definition of prosperity is the state of being successful, especially in terms of economic well-being. But Richard Rudd, founder of the Gene Keys defines prosperity not just in economic terms but something that pertains to all aspects of life flow. It is a state where all dimensions of wellness are in harmony in one’s life including health and relationships.
4. Authenticity
Each one of us are born unique. We all have certain gifts and talents that are uniquely ours. Our role is supposed to be to share these gifts and talents in service to others. But how many of us are actually sharing our uniqueness to the world? More often than not, hide their true selves for fear of being rejected. The real self is hidden behind a social mask. As a result, we forgot who we really are.
5. Acceptance
In any situation, the only way to move forward is through acceptance. Accept what happened. Accept your role in what happened. It is about taking responsibility for the mistakes that you have committed. Get out of your victim pattern. Stop playing the blame game. It is only through acceptance will you be able to move on from your grief, pain and problems. Staying in a state of denial will hinder your growth.
The same is true with one’s self. We are all human beings. No one is perfect. As humans, we all have negative and positive traits. We need to learn to accept all our attributes including our flaws. Just remember that behind that shadow self is a gift.
6. Awareness
Sometimes, it is not that we don’t accept who we are; it is just that we are clueless on who we really are. Self-awareness is about learning to focus on oneself – your thoughts, words and actions. It also includes knowing what your feelings, values and beliefs are. If you are still not sure, ask people who are closest to you, the ones who can be really honest with you. It is only by having an accurate sense of who you are will you be able to know what areas you need to improve on.
7. Persona
Your persona is that side of you that you show to the world. It is your social mask or the image that you show to the public. Are you being authentic? Who are you in front of other people? Do you act the same way when you are alone?
8. Shadow
Your shadow self is the negative part of yourself. Since it is negative, sometimes, it is hard to accept it. Are you lazy, greedy, proud, weak, bitter, highly emotional, selfish etc? These are just some examples of shadow self. Each individual has different shadow selves. Part of achieving spiritual wellness is not just about acceptance and awareness of our shadow selves. We also need to embrace that negative trait of ours because it is part of who we are as individuals. It is only through this process will we know what to do each time our shadow selves creep in and shows itself. So, learn to embrace your shadow self.
9. Human Design
Introduced by Ra Uru Hu, human design is a tool that you use to help you find yourself – your gifts, talents, personality and even your purpose in life. It is based on a mixture of several disciplines including Astrology, I’ching, Kabbalah, Quantum Physics and the Chakra System. It is very helpful if you want to understand yourself better. Knowing your design will also help you make decisions in life.
10. Karma
Karma is a Hindu belief that every thought or action that we put out there in the world, whether intentional or not, has its consequences. It will go back to you in time. Karma does not only pertain to negative things, it can also be positive. Thus, karma is neutral. It all depends on what you put out there.
Karma is similar to the law of attraction. In the law of attraction, everything is energy. You attract what you focus on. You think, speak and do positive things, you will attract positive things, people and events in your life. Similarly, if you have negative thoughts and do bad things, you will attract negative things in your life. So, it is important to be aware of what you focus on.