Working from the Inside Out

On this blog I’ve been writing a lot about what spirituality is and it isn’t. I’ve been hinting a bit about how we can engage it, but I haven’t quite gotten there.

So, this post is a beginning. It’s a beginning about how we can engage our spirituality. It’s a beginning about what difference engaging our spirituality can make for us, as well as for those around us.

Yet, as I’ve indicated previously, spirituality includes just about everything about us. How then can we start engaging this one thing that includes everything?

In short: we do it from the inside out.

I’ve written extensively about how our perceptions create our realities. I’ve also written about how our thoughts, emotions, and memories can dominate our lived experiences.

Spirituality engages all these things in the hope of changing our experiences of reality.

“There are a number of ways we can get in touch with our perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and memories.”

There are a number of ways we can get in touch with our perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and memories.

For those who have close relationships with their bodies, some sort of physical practice might be of benefit. Yoga or walking meditation are often good places to start.

Those who engage life primarily through their minds might benefit from a mindfulness or other meditation practice.

Yet the best practices are often those that engage people accross the various parts of their being at the same time. The book Integral Life Practice by Wilber, Patten, Leonard, and Morelli includes some fantastic tips in this regard.

All this has the goal of enabling a person to detach themself from their automatic perceptions, thoughts, feelings, or memories.

By detaching themself from these things, a person is better able to engage reality as it is, rather than as something they want it or perceive it to be.

This then enables this person to be free of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, or memories that might otherwise restrict how they engage life, rather than experiencing it in all its great fullness.

“By engaging inner realities, people can change their experience of outer realities.”

By engaging these inner realities, then, people can change their experience of outer realites, if only they work from the inside out.

Here are some questions to help you reflect upon how you engage your spirituality:

1. What do you find most appealing: ideas, physical activity, nature, or the arts?
2. Why do these things appeal to you?
3. How do these things connect you to something bigger than yourself, if at all? What is it that gives you this feeling?
4. Have you had this feeling more than once? What has produced this feeling in you? Is it the same or different across your experiences?
5. How has your life changed because of these experiences, if at all?
6. How have you or how do you intend to integrate the meaning of these experiences into your life, if at all?

What’s inside you that you really need to engage? What might engaging it mean for you? How might you change by engaging it?

Wouldn’t be interesting to find out?

References

Trungpa, C. (2018). The future is open: Good karma, bad karma, and beyond karma. Boulder, CO: Shambhala.

Wilber, K. (2006). Integral spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston, MA: Integral books.

Wilber, K., Patten, T., Leonard, A., and Morelli, M. (2008). Integral life practice: A 21st-century bluprint for physical health, emotional balance, mental clarity, and spiritual awakening. Boston, MA: Integral Books.

Disclaimer: The advice and suggestions offered on this site are not substitutes for consultation with qualified mental or spiritual health professionals. The perspectives offered here are those of the author, not of those professionals with whom readers might have relationships as clients or patients. In crisis situations, readers are encouraged to contact these professionals for appropriate support and treatment if needed.