How Do You Start a Spiritual Journey (Without Losing Yourself)?

When someone embarks on a spiritual journey, the initial steps are usually a quiet experience as opposed to experiencing an ‘aha’ moment of enlightenment or an influx of answers to deep questions.

It is through a sense from within oneself that you just “feel” there is a need to explore further depths, insights or truths of your existence and why you’re here on this planet.

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Spiritual Journey is not an Escape

In this day and age, many individuals are discouraged to explore spirituality because they believe they will lose who they are (e.g., ambition, logic, personality, grounding, etc.).

Here’s a tip: real spirituality does not take away what makes you ‘you’; instead, it provides a deeper understanding of yourself.

In fact, the concept of a spiritual journey means engaging with life from a conscious place.

Contrary to how many believe spirituality will require them to withdraw from everyday life, a spiritual journey does not require that you abandon your career, family, friends, goals or unique characteristics.

Spirituality encourages you to look at how you interact with your life.

Your spiritual existence deepens your experience on this planet rather than taking away from your experience.

Start With Self-Awareness, Not Belief

Begin by recognizing and developing your self-awareness instead of focusing on believing something new.

You must first explore what you already possess within yourself.

For instance, observe your repeating memories; observe your patterns of emotional behaviour; observe the conflicts inside of you; observe your feelings of calmness versus restlessness.

Self-awareness is the foundation for developing your spirituality and is a crucial element of developing spiritual growth.

Continually observe and pay attention to your feelings; this will create a greater understanding of yourself.

Let Curiosity Lead, Not Pressure

Many individuals put pressure on themselves in order to develop their spirituality.

Examples may include: meditating every day; manifesting correctly, healing everything and remaining positive.

This pressure creates resistance and can lead to individuals moving further away from their spiritual paths.

A spiritual journey that follows environmental sustainability is driven by optimism rather than coercion.

By asking gentler questions, we can better know ourselves spiritually:

What is it that helps me find a place of inner peace?

What drains me and removes my energy?

What feels like a natural way of being versus something that is being forced by others?

Spiritual development occurs when we can be more open to honesty.

Spirituality and Inner Peace

People often seek spirituality for a state of inner peace or calmness.

Inner peace does not mean always feeling calm; instead, it means knowing that as life changes, you have remained steady and in control of your thoughts and emotions.

Mindfulness, meditation, breath, and being grounded help us stay focused on what we can do in the present moment and not constantly think about our pasts.

Your relationship with life is what creates the state of inner peace for you. Your state of inner peace does not occur by fixing your life.

Use Spiritual Tools Without Losing Discernment

Using spiritual tools without giving up your analytical skills.

Astrology, tarot, manifestation, energy healing, and intuitive guidance or simply joining spiritual communities are all examples of spiritual tools that can help you gain insight into yourself.

When using spiritual tools, always ask yourself the question, “Am I using these tools for insight or am I using them to avoid taking personal responsibility for my life and the way I think?”

Your grounded spiritual journey does not require you to become dependent upon any spiritual tool.

instead, it encourages you to use tools to gain knowledge and insight about who you are and how you relate to the world.

Stay Rooted in Your Real Life

Your grounded spiritual journey is about finding clarity for yourself rather than predicting what will happen in the future.

You should always rely on the guidance of your own intuition rather than seeking approval from others.

Your spiritual work should support you in developing your own sense of self.

You should be able to spread your desires without being attached to them.

A healthy spiritual journey allows you to do this without forcing yourself.

Staying attentive to the physical world will help you develop your spiritual self.

Growth Does Not Mean Losing Identity

The spiritual path you are taking must complement your emotional reality, your responsibilities, and the process in which you make decisions based on being truthful with yourself.

If you have become disconnected from your feelings of importance, have been elevated in your mind as superior to the rest of the world, or have numbed your emotional self.

You may want to take a break from this process of exploring your spirituality and get back down to earth.

Spirituality integrates the various aspects of life in a way that creates unity.

You do not have to become a completely different person by exploring your spirituality.

Spiritual growth often helps you to release the fears that you have accumulated due to conditioning, as well as break away from the automatic, perpetuated behavior patterns that you have.

Instead of gaining a new personality, you will gain clarity of an already-defined personality.

As a result of your spiritual growth, you will become your authentic self instead of losing yourself.

Spiritual growth is the result of slow and steady progress, rather than fast and intense spiritual experiences.

You are not on a time clock with your spiritual journey; there is no deadline to follow; rather, you can develop a relationship with your spirituality by starting and maintaining it gently.