I lay in bed this Father’s Day morning thinking I should be getting up out of bed and doing something. Yet, when the thought of getting up when I have had nearly a week of interrupted sleep (can’t even blame my 5 month old Flynn for this one), rendered my legs to the sinking feeling of the mattress. My lovely husband David was home and we’d already celebrated his first Father’s Day with breakfast and a cuppa but he knew I was tired and said I should rest up.
And as I lay there, trying hard to sleep, thoughts were racing through my mind.
‘I should get up it’s his special day. I should be working on my blog right now while I have the help, heck I should just hop in the damn shower and just wake myself up.’
But I really sensed in my spirit ‘Sink in.’ So I did, I rested for a little longer, and although I couldn’t fall back to sleep it was nice to just pull the doona right on up and to close my eyes and to acknowledge the heaviness in my legs and the need to simply just be.
Wanting More and Doing More
You see you and I WANT more and we equate that with having to DO more. We’re taught it in school that we need to put the hard yards in to get the results. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail. And in saying that we control every single situation and person (mostly ourselves) and we do it because even though it may not feel it at the time, reality is DOING more makes us feel safe. We FEEL like if we do x, y, z then we’ll have a specific outcome. We wrap it around us like a warm (security) blanket. We feel spirituality cold so we pull the wool blanket over our shoulders and right up over our hearts providing ourselves with this false sense of security. It feels warm and cosy in the interim but eventually we have to pull ourselves out from under the blanket to face the day.
Perhaps we need to hop into the shower to wash off the spiritual dirt we’ve placed into our lives (you know the stuff you don’t want there but you think needs to be there, or the stuff that you do without giving it much thought).
To feel clean of spiritual expectations…
To find out what it is you want more of in the first place and deciding you don’t actually want to do more.
Sometimes it’s just about taking each day as it comes, perhaps nestling into the cosiness of your bed and just being. Other times you might connect with God in movement.
Connection with Spirituality
In fact there’s a spiritual law (but bear with me cause this one’s a good one), a promise for those of you who want intimacy with God. James 4:8 in the Bible talks about ‘Come near to God and he will come near to you.’ Basically, anyone can experience closeness to God and their spirituality.
When you are feeling like you are drifting or you feel like you need to do more ask yourself these 2 questions:
How can I best experience God?
There is no one size fits all when it comes to connecting with God so if you think you can do certain things to gain ‘approval’ or feel super spiritual then you’ve missed the whole point of having a heart centred connection. Discover what it is that is your unique you, rather than hiding behind woo woo. If you find reading the Bible hard, perhaps getting it on audio might be more enjoyable. If you like to pray but just can’t get the words out you could always journal and write out your prayers.
You can experience God in a way that is unique to you. Do it with passion! (And fun. Remember spirituality can be far from boring if you want…) Ask yourself these 2 questions ‘What has brought you close to God in the past and what is something new that may help you to connect in a fresh way?’
What barriers are hindering you from experiencing God?
Remember the analogy I mentioned earlier about having the shower and getting rid of any spiritual dirt? Take inventory. What is it that is holding you back from connecting with your spirituality? Sometimes it can even be well meaning stuff just clogging up the drains. It could be materialism (are you shopping to cover your emotional pain?) It can even be the time we put into our careers, our bodies or even our hobbies. You know, busy complex. We claim we don’t have time to connect but yet we’ve made idols out of the everyday.
Don’t get me wrong is it bad to shop? Nope but if you are doing it to cover up that grudge you have against someone than heck yeah it can affect your ability to connect with God and your spirituality.
So how can you figure out the barriers?
You can confess it to God and if you find that concept just a little weird for now perhaps you can talk it out with a friend or a trusted mentor. You could also speak with a spirituality life coach (pick me, pick me) who can help ask you the right questions to the answers you already have inside of you. You could even ask yourself ‘what are you tempted to put ahead of God and your spirituality?’
Once you’ve figured out your barriers how can you then remove these barriers? If you’re busy evaluate what you have in your day or week that doesn’t need to be there. Sit with your intuition. Do you need to say no to that extra invite out? (Or yes because you’ve been hermiting yourself for faaar too long). Do you need to install an app that blocks you out of social media for a set time so you can stay focussed on your connection to your spirituality? Or do you need to put your technological devices away every night so that in the morning it would be more of an effort to go retrieve them then to sit and connect in with yourself, your spirit and God? Whatever it is you need to do there is always a way out, if that’s what you want to do.
I would love to know your answers to the 2 questions. Comment in the box below and let’s get a conversation started. If you loved the post please share using the buttons below and if I can help you in anyway feel free to shoot me off an email: thebutterflyhouse@dianabraybrooke.com I’d love to hear from you.
