Can spiritual practices really heal you ?
Today I would like to talk about the spiritual and personal development practices that we sometimes do such as meditation, Yoga, reading spirituality books, participating in retreats etc…
Why?
Simply because a lot of people are not moving forward, feel stuck in their progression and are asking questions.
Today we are opening the dialogue to better understand what is going on underneath these practices, what we expect from them and what we should rather understand and do to move forward.
Spiritual practices are tools.
They allow us to focus our attention on the transformative work we seek. This means that they cannot do the active work for us.
In other words, practising meditation, for example, helps us to better understand our nature and the nature of the monkey mind, but it cannot do the action for us.
When we become sensitive to a teaching, it is not enough to know it. It is still necessary to put it into practice in order to integrate it.
Practising Yoga twice a week between 4 and 6 o’clock is not enough.We must become and embody what we have learned in our daily life and until the end of our lives.Otherwise…. we just lose our awareness.
What do I mean by losing our awareness?
The robotic tendency of our brain, which is certainly useful but very limited. Our brain is a great recording machine. All our experiences, good or traumatic, everything we have been told since we were born, even the ridiculous, nasty and even threatening things.
It’s all stored in our subconscious; where our memories are and in our unconscious where resides all our programmes : fear, lack of confidence and anger.
Those programmes, which then play out in our life and influence it without us knowing it, lead us in spite of ourselves to a life which we have not consciously chosen.
How?
Our normal or natural state is to have a monkey or wild mind. To be negative, to say no first, to react all day long to the same programmes that are played out in the background without our awareness of it.
Free will is not possible when we are not aware of what makes us go in this or that direction.
We have the impression that we are deciding, but this is not the case.
Some practices aim at remembering those things that we have run away from, but this has no point other than to bring back suffering.
Analysing one’s past and that of one’s ancestors can bring out difficult discoveries.
Are we prepared for that ?
We have so many programmes buried in our cells that we don’t remember; We just know we have them and that we need to change something in our lives and try “to find out” exactly “what is wrong with us”.
In order to reduce the intensity of these programmes, it is necessary to train every day of your life to reduce the grip of these programmes.
By the way, everything is OK with you. We all have worries and challenges, but everything is OK with all of us.
Yoga, books, retreats, or even what I say, help to raise awareness, but they are tools that cannot replace action.
Our life must become a spiritual practice.
Yes meditate, yes do yoga, yes go to conferences and retreats because it supports our quest But NO it is not a magic pill that we can take, if the rest of the time we live the same way, make the same mistakes, react the same way with those around us.
Neither will it be useful to lock yourself in a cave to avoid people and the world simply because when you come out of it the world is still there, but you will not have learnt not to react in front of everything and all the people that trigger your emotional reactions like anger, impatience, hatred etc.
The world, the people, the situations you will never be able to change them one by one, you will die of burnout before!
Society has created these identities that stick to us.
Only you can change by changing your perception of your reality day after day.
If someone makes you angry whether they are right or wrong in your opinion, you have 2 choices:
React angrily as usual.
Or not react at all and stay calm and peaceful.
After all, it’s their problem if they don’t like you.
The ego doesn’t accept, but the consciousness which you are underneath has no ego.
Living mindfully or driven by the ego is the choice of every minute of one’s life.
A spiritual practice will not make you do the work of colliding with life and learning from it to grow for your own good and the good of all.
Our bad attitude and temper have a negative impact on others which in turn have a negative impact on those around them and so on.
There is no pill or miracle practice.
Only the mastery of our ego and the will to change ourselves by practising not to react to everything we react to, will help us evolve and heal and be calm, stable and happy.
I propose that we transform our life into a spiritual practice 24 hours a day so that we can finally evolve.
In the meantime, continue practising yoga meditation and other modalities but remember that on top, YOU must do the real work of transformation.
You can start with me today with this intention.
Mantra:
I don’t define myself through the identities created by society.
Please repeat it silently during the sound practice.
Namaste
Ellen
Ellen is a Professional Mindfulness and meditation teacher, a singer-songwriter and Sound Therapist. She is certified USUI Reiki Master Level III. She’s an intuitive Tarot Reader. In her work, she creates a safe space where she uses Reiki, Meditation, Sound healing Tarot and teachings, to heal body, mind and spirit and promote a sound sleep.
