Spiritual Growth

The Spiritual Challenge of Modern Times


To grow spiritually in a world defined by power, money, and influence is a Herculean task. Modern conveniences such as electronic equipments, gadgets, and tools as well as entertainment through television, magazines, and the web have predisposed us to confine our attention mostly to physical needs and wants. As a result, our concepts of self-worth and self-meaning are muddled. How can we strike a balance between the material and spiritual aspects of our lives?

To grow spiritually is to look inward.

Introspection goes beyond recalling the things that happened in a day, week, or month. You need to look closely and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Periodically examining your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships you have, and the things you engage in, provide useful insights into your life goals. Looking back on your good traits and your bad traits, reflect on them and make the decision to discard those that are no longer worthy of you and keep those that you consider to be part of your very soul. The more you seek the more you will find. What’s deep inside, and you must be true to yourself, will open your awareness as to how to act, react, and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill, introspection can be learned; all it takes is the courage and willingness to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some pointers when you introspect: be objective, be forgiving of yourself, and focus on your areas for improvement.

To grow spiritually is to develop your potential and your creativity.

Religion and science have differing views on matters of the human spirit. Religion views people as spiritual beings temporarily living on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one dimension of an individual. Mastery of the self is a recurring theme in both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings. The needs of the body are recognized but placed under the needs of the spirit. Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences, and good works provide the blueprint to ensure the growth of the spiritual being. In Psychology, realizing one’s full potential is to self-actualize. Maslow identified several human needs: physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and self-transcendence. James earlier categorized these needs into three: material, emotional, and spiritual. When you have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or existential needs come next. Achieving each need leads to the total development of the individual. Christianity and Islam see that self-development is a means toward serving God, while psychology view that self-development is an end in itself.

To grow spiritually is to search for meaning.

Religions that believe in the existence of God such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam support that theory that the purpose of human life is to serve the Creator of all things. Several theories in psychology propose that we must ultimately give meaning to our lives. Whether we believe that life’s meaning is pre-determined or self-directed, to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist. We do not know the meaning of our lives at birth; but we gain knowledge and wisdom from our interactions with people and from our actions and reactions to the situations we are in. As we discover this meaning, there are certain beliefs and values that we reject and affirm. Our lives have purpose. This purpose puts all our physical, emotional, and intellectual potentials into use; sustains us during trying times; and gives us something to look forward to, a goal to achieve, a destination to reach. A person without purpose or meaning is like a ship drifting at sea.

To grow spiritually is to recognize interconnections.

Religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all creation, live and inanimate. Thus we call other people “brothers and sisters” even if there are no direct blood relations. Moreover, deity-centered religions such as Christianity and Islam speak of the relationship between humans and a higher being. On the other hand, science expounds on our link to other living things through the evolution theory. This relatedness is clearly seen in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things. In psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence, the highest human need according to Maslow. Recognizing your connection to all things makes you more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in nature. It makes you appreciate everything around you. It moves you to go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people.

Growth is a process and to grow in spirit is a day-to-day experience. We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is that we learn, and from this knowledge, further spiritual growth is possible.

MOTIVATION, THE HEART OF SELF IMPROVEMENT

Have you ever thought about why people change or what the underlying factor is in looking towards self-improvement.

Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change. Getting bad grades makes us realize that we need to study. Debts remind us of our inability to find a good source of income. Being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves, to save face from the next embarrassment. It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us get up and find just the right amount of motivation we need in order to improve ourselves.

The key factor in self improvement is motivation, without which there is no driving force to change and so nothing would be achieved.

With the countless negativities in the world around us, how do we keep motivated? It is very hard but I found some interesting tips from A-Z that might inspire you and so I want to share them with you...

A - Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

B - Believe in yourself, and in what you can do.

C – Consider things from every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.

D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once, twice, more than three times before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation your steering wheel.

E – Enjoy work as if you don’t need money, dance as if nobody’s watching, love as if you’ve never cried, learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.

F – Family and Friends – are life’s greatest treasures. Don’t loose sight of them.

G – Give more than enough. Where does motivation and self improvement take place at work, at home, at school? Wherever you exert extra effort in doing things.

H – Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment, but these little stars will be your driving force.

I – Ignore those who try to destroy you or put you down. Don’t let other people get the best of you. Stay away from people who hate to hear about your success they are not true friends.

J – Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone by being what they want you to be.

K – Keep trying, no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, they strive joyfully to their goals and follow their dreams.

L – Learn to love yourself. Now isn’t that easy?

M – Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into work clothes.

N – Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.

O – Open your eyes to all that you experience in life and if it is not what you want then change it. Change is under your control.

P – Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us learn repertoire and ways in which can we recover from our mistakes.

Q – Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter or a winner?

R – Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before others try to push us around. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.

S – Stop procrastinating.

T – Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement.

U – Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and then to be understood.

V – Visualize your dreams. Motivation without vision is like a boat on a dry land.

W – Want it more than anything. Feel it, experience the emotion of what you want and the way it makes you feel having it. Dreaming means believing and to believe is something that extends out from the core understanding of motivation and self improvement.

X – X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to achieve more “extras” in your life, like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.

Y – You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to spend it once.

Z – Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!

Hope you can work with some of these to improve your life. Until tomorrow, love and light.