Starting Your Spiritual Journey

Our relationship had to be broken down before we were able to rebuild. For me, giving up would have been easy. However, if I really believed everything I had learned up to that point, then becoming fully engaged with the person I loved would give us an opportunity for a deeper connection. A trust in grace, a trust in radical love. I was willing to start again from the beginning. To get to know each other as the people we currently were. To encourage each other’s attempts to change as opposed to throwing our hands up in the air when we fell back into old habits. We messed up, a lot. I valued doing spiritual work, and he valued verbal communication. We started dating each other again, we made time for sharing how we felt. We built daily rituals, we respected each other. We agreed to learn as much as we could, we worked on ourselves and jointly on our relationship.

As You Lean Into The Light

This however didn’t make us immune to dealing with life. My intention was to go, get some chilling, and reset from being on the road nonstop. I had tallied a total of only four weeks at home in the two years since I’d moved back to Los Angeles. I had gone from teaching in my living room to teaching in places with stages. I taught every week, sometimes several times per day. I traveled and taught. I traveled to different continents, often in awe of how much world there was to discover. My name appeared in magazine articles. I worked with students who had Olympic medals, championship rings, and multiple homes. I was tired and I needed a break. I had created a healthy relationship with my body and knew it was asking me to stop. The teachings say you teach what you mostly need to learn, and I felt hypocritical having conversations with my students about burning the candle at both ends while I was doing exactly that.

Just Don't Have The Heart

When I got to my room, I opened my window to a beautiful tree atop the Blue Ridge Mountains as a thick fog rolled in. Even though I had this beautiful life, I still felt like there was no way it could last. The familiarity of When will that next shoe drop? was always there. I learned that mere insight won’t change your life. You must be proactive, and even then, things can still fall apart. The promise of impermanence weighed heavily. I wondered how long my relationship would last. How long my dogs would live. If I would still enjoy my work in ten years. I wondered if I could continue to make new friends and still be uplifted by my old ones. There was so much unknown. You need three things to begin a spiritual quest.

If There Was Any Other Way

The first is the willingness to inquire within. The third is a guide whose flashlight is a little brighter than your own. The first two are simple. The last one can be more challenging. There has been a flood of yoga celebrities on social media. They post inspirational quotes and have carefully curated grids and images of green smoothies and sunsets. I saw the value of having a social media presence to engage with people outside of my physical community. To me, spirituality and being spiritual indicate one’s ability to connect with something deeper, something that provides meaning to life. It takes a lot more than an inspirational quote to achieve a deep level of fulfillment and connection. I wondered if maybe the people posting these quotes were posting what they needed to hear themselves. Humans need experiences, which means we need to live our life, not cut and paste it. We live to be in the presence of life, immersed in the grit of it all. Humans engage and connect by digging into our dreams and finding the communal support to make them come true. We must go out into the world and have relationships with people in real life, not just on social media. We must engage and connect with other humans. It’s not a bad thing to follow uplifting and inspiring teachers and others on social media. Perhaps their teachings can become a doorway to a clearer path and a deeper connection to yourself. Relying only on the external experience, however, prevents us from doing the real internal work. It distracts us from being aware of our own feelings, thoughts, and emotions and leaves us feeling spiritually vacant. Like anything, the internet is a tool, not the source. Now that you know how I feel about social media, let’s talk about finding the right spiritual guide. People from all types of faiths and backgrounds have sought the guidance of wise people forever. Because wise people have seen the best and worst parts of life. Chances are they’ve made it through and carry some battle scars. They may be able to teach you something you don’t already know. They are farther down the path than you are. A guide may come in the form of a teacher, therapist, coach, counselor, priest, preacher, or someone who you may feel has the experience you can draw from. Is a guide required? However, it is helpful to have the guidance of someone who is a little further into life’s journey than you are. If you are looking for someone who will just tell you what you want to hear and keep you in the realm of what is known, then you aren’t looking for a teacher. You are looking for an enabler. Be careful about who you choose for guidance, especially if you’re vulnerable or going through a terrible time in your life. Find a true teacher, not an idol. Idolized humans have a way of shattering their pulpits. I’ll leave it at that. Early on, I wanted a teacher but didn’t know what I was looking for. Any time I found someone I really admired, I consumed everything they’d written, every lecture.