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Spirituality: Exploring what it is

autumn hills I see myself more and more as on a spiritual path. I'm not exactly sure where my path leads, but I know the more I become 'me' – the real 'me' that doesn't hide behind a series of masks – the closer I get to where I'm headed. There is a growing awareness too that I'm a spiritual being (the temptation to edit that out and write 'spiritual person' is huge: yet this is at the heart of this Tip, so it is 'being' which is more than just 'person').

Lots of my thoughts and ideas on spirituality are still relatively new. I don't stand here and claim to be an expert – rather I simply have a desire to share what I have come to understand.

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
When I ask people this question, I get so many different answers. So let me give you my thoughts. First of all, for me spirituality and religion are not the same. I have lived in 4 different countries and have experienced Catholic, Islamic, Buddhist and even Shinto (Japanese) religions. Each religion has gifts and profound treasures to offer people, but too often religion is used as a weapon for war – and for me that simply can not be right. And yet at the heart of my spirituality there is a belief there is something much bigger than myself and I am connected to it. Some people call this their connection to God, others refer to it as connecting to their Higher Self (and in part I agree with this), but mostly I see it as my soul's connection to the Universe. It is via the Universe that I am connected to everyone and everything in it via the energy of which we are made.

We all grow up with our own unique 'family maps' – maps that form the basis of our beliefs and behaviours that in most part weren't learnt and absorbed from childhood. We then add a layer that becomes our individual view of the world, though things we have learnt and/or experienced. And on top of this comes all of our fears, worries and behaviours that we pick up on our journey through life. Our spirit is our pure soul that sits beneath all of our layers – masks if you will – and so it's not uncommon for people to be unaware of their real 'me' inside them: their 'me' that has inherent greatness. The spiritual path for me then is the journey that reveals my soul to the human me – and in doing so enriches my human experience.

THREE MINDS
There are many different views and ideas on how your spiritual being shows up and how you can become more connected to both yourself, others and your Universe (God or Higher Self). This diagram shows you how I think it works.

diagram - 3 minds

To be more connected it helps if your life is not cluttered with things you are putting-up-with, that your boundaries are clear, your standards are high and you start to really look after yourself – all of which coaching brings to you. Dream analysis gives you glimpses of your spirit and mediation also helps you see and feel the beauty of who you truly are. I also believe that you can get in touch with your spirit through journal writing if you allow yourself simply to write instead of compose.

ONE, FOUR OR SEVEN BODIES?
People interested in spirituality, energy healing, NLP and esoteric studies generally believe that we are more than just our physical bodies or conscious mind. Most of these people believe that we have four main bodies and seven in total. They see these 'bodies' as energy that radiates beyond our physical form. These are known as auras. Auras can be captured by special cameras which can record these energy fields. Psychics and some other people can see or sense them too. Let me show you how I see the bodies and minds working together.

diagram 4 bodies

In energy healing and in some spiritual circles they also believe there are 7 bodies that radiate out from the physical body – called the Etheric, to the Emotional, Mental, Astral, Etheric Template, Celestial and Causal bodies. They believe the different bodies hold different energies, knowledge and wisdom, some containing and overlapping with the ideas above.

The maturing of the bodies at different times in our lives helps explain why in our late teens and early 20s we far more interested in finding a potential mate and reproducing than almost anything else. The emotional body matures just at the time when most of us are becoming parents, whilst by 30 we are beginning to see the bigger picture in life. It also not surprising that in our 40s as our spiritual body matures we often feel drawn to finding out our life's meaning and sometimes quite suddenly decide to change our direction in life (the mid-life crisis).

If you believe that your soul lives on forever, this helps explain that we may not have just one human experience but instead many – and reincarnation is a possibility at least. And if this is true, and you have the chance to experience life over and over again, do you think your soul would choose to keep having the best, most luxurious life ever? No. That would be far too boring! I won't go into this further (at least not today) but leave you with this thought. Have you ever met someone who is wise way beyond their years? Or someone who retains a child-like innocence into old age? Could it just be that these are 'old wise souls' in young body or an 'enthusiastic puppy souls' in an old body? Just a thought about how this may be! Or perhaps have you ever met someone for the first time and felt you know them deeply already? Perhaps it's because you do know them – but from another time.

With all this talk of spirituality and reaching a place of being where you life is more at peace and more connected – I think we need to remember our physical, human side is very important too. It is our human side that feels the sun caress our skin, makes our ribs ache when we laugh too hard, notices the scent of honeysuckle on the breeze, tastes the zing of fresh raspberries on our tongue, and the touch of a hand from a loved one. And of course the tears when we are sad, the emptiness when we feel alone and strident noise that disrupts your calm. The conscious mind and the physical body of being a human being is just as important as your spiritual side. However, becoming aware that we are more than just a physical being enables us to see, feel and experience much more in life. Which reminds me of a quotation I like: “We are all spiritual beings having a human experience” which also makes me realize our human side is wonderful, otherwise why would our spirit want to experience it?

I know a lot of people are interested in spirituality: and equally a lot who aren't! In my coaching I work with some clients exclusively in the physical body / conscious mind arena. For those who are interested in spirituality then we will look at what spirituality means to you, how to work with your intuition, finding out who you really are, and so on.

WHAT NEXT?
Try out a coaching session! I offer a half-price try-me-out session for people who are interested in coaching. Call me on 01305 772220 or 0845 83 86 733 (lo call rate) or email me to book your session. You can pay by credit card, bank transfer or cheque.

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