Spiritual Growth and Setting Intentions
It’s that time of year when most of us reflect on what we would like to change or achieve in the upcoming year. We tend to focus a lot on health, diet and money goals… but what about spiritual growth goals…
If you’ve been wanting to improve your sense of inner peace, increase your intuition or heal past wounds, you may want to incorporate spiritual goals and habits.
Like any other goals, spiritual growth goals can be difficult to achieve without proper reflection and an action plan. If you’ve tried to incorporate spiritual habits in your life, such as meditation or self-healing and haven’t been quite successful, don’t get discouraged!
Sometimes we have to try many times to succeed. Just as this Japanese proverb says it well :
Fall down seven times, get up eight times
Spiritual Growth and Setting Intentions
What is your vision?
What is the greater vision you have for yourself and your life? How do you want to live and how do you want to feel? Are you living purposefully? Do you have ideals?
“An ideal is not a goal. It is a motivational standard by which to evaluate our goals and our reasons for pursuing those goals. The goal is what; the ideal is why! A spiritual ideal is not so much a goal toward which we move as it is the spirit in which we grow. It is a living and dynamic standard by which we quicken and measure our daily motivation.” (Puryear, 1982, p. 112)
This is a good exercise from the work of Edgar Cayce on establishing spiritual ideals and aligning your mental attitudes and physical behaviors to these ideals. This process is not done once, but is an evolving process that changes as you change.
Are you embracing or resisting change?
Setting intentions or New Year’s resolutions stems from a good intention, the desire to feel and to be a better person! Without having certain goals in mind of where and how we want to be, your life could become stagnant or potentially take you onto an undesirable path.
The Soul takes on a body for learning, resolving past-lives and growing skills, traits, wisdom. This is the plane of action. Which is why every trial should be seen as an opportunity for growth and experience. As difficult as some of them are to overcome, trust that you do possess within you the ability to. Your Soul knows your potential, even if you can’t quite see it in yourself yet.
Sometimes we may work really hard to achieve something or breakthrough a certain field and we don’t seem to get much success. In those times, it’s important to contemplate reasons beyond the ones you would normally ask yourself, such as: What more could I have done? What did I do wrong? And get into a dialogue with your Soul to see if you are really on the right path. Is this what you should be doing with your life and energy?
Our Soul sometime tries to push us in a different direction, on a path we are meant to walk. For some of us, that means stepping on the road less traveled or creating a completely new trail. We often don’t want to hear that inner voice and may try to brush off the signs until something drastic happens and we have to change course.
So when setting up goals it’s a good idea to really reflect and go within to see if the goal is aligned with your Soul and what you are truly seeking to achieve by working towards that goal.
You can choose to follow the signs and listen to your inner self or you can resist what is trying to emerge. Resisting changes may not stop the growth but might make the process less enjoyable.
So, if you’ve been experiencing a lot of obstacles and resistance in your life, ask yourself what it could be from? If the resistance stems from unresolved wounds and limiting beliefs, how can you overcome that resistance? If you’ve been trying to avoid and quiet that little inner voice that is requesting a big move, what would it take for you to enjoy the process and see this as a massive opportunity?
Discovering the reasons for the desired growth
There are usually deeper underlying reasons for everything we do in our life (the good and not so good stuff). By tapping to the underlying reason you can better assess if your habits and actions are aligned with your spiritual goals. The question you need to ask yourself is not only what you need or want to change in your life, but why you need to.
Also knowing the consequences of not changing certain non-beneficial patterns can boost your motivation to take action on a regular basis. Increasing self-awareness is the basis of spiritual growth. By becoming radically aware of your emotions, thoughts, patterns, and actions you can more easily spot your contradictions and conflicts.
The feeling of freedom that is so desired within each of us can feel restricted when we try to impose a change on ourselves. Understanding the reason for the change will help lift that feeling of restriction and constraint.
Putting it into action
Having your vision, ideals, and goals displayed or written down in a place you see often can remind you of what you are working on and help you stay focused and motivated.
You can set up an altar with tokens representing those ideals and goals. You can also make and display a vision board. And write an intentional statement.
It would be a good idea to read your ideals every morning so your mind and body can be reminded of the desired state of being. In the evening, reflect on your day and notice when your attitudes and behaviors contradicted those ideals.
