15 Self-Care Tips For The Spiritual Path
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“Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live.”
Before we dive into the list I want to urge you to combine these self care ideas. For example, you may be doing Yin Yoga, with candles lit, while listening to Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’ and having a good cry all at once. I highly recommend trying this;)
1) Meditation
The spiritual path is really about transcending the mind and self-realizing that you are an eternal spiritual being having a temporary human existence. There is no more direct path to this realization than meditation. When we allow ourselves to let go of the thinking mind and fall into our spaciousness we begin to let the attachment to thoughts and the story of our mind fall away so that something greater can come forward into our awareness. Meditation also releases energy, helping you to restore an energetic balance to your being. Try implementing a daily meditation into your spiritual practice and see if you can connect in a deeper way with the beyond, beyond.
2) Yin Yoga
In general, Yoga is a wonderful practice for the spiritual path, but I have found that Yin Yoga is the most nourishing. Our emotions and feelings are stored in our connective tissues. Because Yin Yoga has you hold poses for 3-5 minutes and sometimes even longer, all of those emotions and feelings in your connective tissues begin to release. This is really effective for allowing old wounds and traumas to come up to the surface to be felt, accepted and loved so that they can transmute into the light (balance). The nourishing poses, the length of the time you hold the poses and the depth to which you are able to feel into your body is what makes Yin Yoga such beautiful practice on the spiritual path. Yin Yoga also releases cells that give you a more youthful and vital appearance. People that regularly do Yin Yoga will also notice brighter, shinning eyes.
3) Crying
Crying is one of the most cathartic and healing things that I have experienced on the journey of self discovery. Whether it was my deep guttural, wailing during my spiritual-kundalini crisis stage, or the lighter and softer tears that pour out of my eyes when I hear or see something beautiful, crying as been a cornerstone of my healing journey. You are really able to experience yourself with such compassion and non judgement through crying. If you want to feel better, lighter and let go of old pains and traumas, let the tears flood from your being.
4) Deep Rest
Guilt-free DEEP rest truly works miracles for us beings who are in the midst of a mind blowing and hyper accelerated transformation. As rapidly as we are letting go of the old and coming into the new it is a necessity that we experience a ‘womb’ phase. Or as in my case, several ‘womb’ phases. Don’t let this frustrate you and try not to make yourself feel like you should be ‘doing’ during this phase. The more you allow yourself to sink into deep rest the quicker this phase will pass. If you don’t have the energy for doing than don’t force it. You always know what you need, trust your intuition, even if that means laying in bed all day, for several days consecutive. Often times when we are transforming into a new version of our self a depression will come over us because we are being forced to let go of all of our older attachments. This can create a temporary de-pression, which calls for deep-rest. If you are struggling with chronic fatigue, give yourself the gift of undistracted and guilt free deep rest. I promise you will feel better.
5) Nature
Whenever I have felt really up against it, ungrounded and out of answers on this path, I have always turned to nature to steady me. If you having a really tough time I recommend walking barefoot somewhere in nature. Whether it is a park, the beach, mountains and forests, the desert, really anywhere outside where you can connect with Mother Gaia and give her all of your excess energy.
A picture of Forest Park in Portland, Oregon. I would frequently go into the forest when I was feeling overwhelmed.
6) Talk With Someone Who Makes You Feel Heard
They don’t even need to understand what you are going through, they just need to be willing to be present with you and to listen. This could be a family member, a friend or someone online that you have met on the path. When we are having a difficult time there is nothing quite like being able to express openly to someone what we are going through. Early in my awakening I really leaned on the support of my Mom and one of my best friends. I would just talk with them at length with what I was experiencing. It worked wonders for my healing process.
7) Prayer
Prayer is the most powerful self-care tip there is for opening your heart and bringing more love into your being. My prayers go something like this, “God, will you please help me to open my heart. Will you please give me the courage to open to you, so that you can flood my being with your grace. God, use me as a vessel for your divine will. Use me as a conduit to anchor your love, peace and joy into this planet. Help me to surrender all of my egoic desires to you God, so that I can serve you in my highest capacity.”
8) Animals
Animals are unconditionally loving and always present. What could be better traits for a companion to have on the spiritual healing journey?
You knew I was going to squeeze a picture of my cats in here somewhere!
9) Content That Uplifts
Watching and reading content that uplift your Spirit and help you to deeper understand your process are invaluable tools on the awakening path. I highly recommend, Mooji, Adyashanti, Eckart Tolle, The Bhagavad Gita, Craig Holliday, Victor Oddo, The Soulful Toz and many others.
10) Water!
Water has this invigorating cleansing and purifying effect on the body. I have found swimming one of the most refreshing ways to shift my energetic state when I am going through some challenging symptoms. It is also a great work out as a bonus! Sauna’s, steam rooms, baths and hot showers are all wonderful ways to really nourish your body and spirit. A bath with a candle and some soothing music can go a long way to helping us integrate our darkness.
11) Food
As we become more awake we become more conscious of what we are putting into our bodies. There is no one fits all spiritual diet. You will have to determine what diet best suits you on your spiritual healing journey by listening to your body. And it is important to remember that your diet and your bodies needs will always be changing on this path, so try not to get too rigid. If you have been a vegetarian you entire life and suddenly your body is begging you for meat, you will be well advised to listen to its demands. The opposite is also true. A lot of life long meat eaters start undergoing a spiritual awakening and can no longer stomach meat. Early in a kundalini awakening when you are overwhelmed with energy and are having trouble staying grounded, it is essential that you heavier foods. Later on down the line you will feel intuitively guided to become eating more ‘high vibe.’ For me, my heavier eating phase lasted the better part of 1.5 years, and I still go in and out of it till this day.
12) Music
I’ll keep this one short:
Julia Jacklin ‘Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You’
Yaima- The Sacred Yaima-Antidote Yaima- Gajumaru
En el Cielo- Pacha Mama- Nessi Gomes
13) Dance
Over this last summer, when my 4 year old nephew was visiting, he would come out to my studio and demand, ”Let’s have a jam session, Uncle Matt!” Even when I was feeling the lows of going through an awakening and dancing was the furthest thing from my mind, how could I say no?! Sure enough after about a minute or two I would actually find that I was enjoying myself! There is nothing like ecstatic dancing with a 4 year old to raise your vibration:)
14) Humorous and Light TV Shows, Stand Up Comedy
As the saying goes, “laughter is the best medicine.” I remember one hellish week about a year ago when I was living alone in Spokane, I was going through an awful and painful purging process. The kundalini was burning the insides of my brain up so intensely that I would wake up every 20 minutes soaked in my own sweat. I was on an awful sleep schedule and was feeling very tortured. Thank God for ‘The Office’ that week. I think I binge watched the entire series in one week haha! I don’t always recommend distracting yourself from what you are experiencing, but I get it, sometimes we just need to reach for some relief, and laughter and crying is possibly the best relief there is from excruciating pain.
15) Candles, Incense
Candles have become a staple in my meditation, prayer and yoga practices. Candles and incense are great to pair with several other self care tips on this list. They just seem to enhance so many of the things we can do to nourish ourselves.
