Spiritual Growth Exercises

Complete the exercises below as you feel inspired.

Know Thyself Mirror Exercise:

With your pen and paper make your way to a quiet room with a mirror. Sit down in a chair in front of the mirror and look at you. You are going to have a conversation (it doesn’t have to be out loud) with you. Pay attention to what you notice. Do you easily look at yourself and face yourself head on? Or, do you avoid your own gaze? How do you feel? Shy? Embarrassed? Empowered? Good, bad etc. Take note of all these feelings and write them down. Ask to speak to your higher self and hold your own gaze. Look into your eyes, the depths of your soul and start to get to know this person. Ask your higher self to work with you. This connects you to your spirit, the truth of who you really are outside of all this material, physical stuff. You aren’t here to look at a reflection. You are here to look into your own soul. Spend 15 solid minutes here and go with the flow of what happens. If you find it hard to look at yourself for 15 minutes ask yourself why? What don’t you want to see? What makes you uncomfortable? If you feel good, great, probe into that further… find out what makes this other aspect of yourself tick. Don’t be shy, dig in and start exploring the depths of your soul…it’s your purpose for living. After you are done Journal your experience. What happened?

Repeat this exercise as you are able it is a great growth exercise and will help you learn a lot of things about your immense spirit. Dedicate time to yourself to do this exercise at least 3 to 4 times over the next year and record it in your journal. At the end of a year, go back and review the experiences you had.

True Colors Exercise:

This exercise is way to see your thoughts on things. If you happen to have one handy take a crayon box of colors…pull a color out of the box and then write down the first word or emotion that pops into your head. Example: purple = ‘relaxed’ If you don’t have a box of crayons, make a list of every color you are able to think of…come up with at least 10. Later on come back to it and as you go through your list of colors quickly write down the first word that pops into your head for each one. The key here is to not think just do. If you repeat words for different colors that’s ok.  When you get done going through all your colors look at the results. See where some of your emotions or words are similar, and where they are opposites.

This may teach you more about yourself than you think. Do it and see what happens for you. The more secure you are in your true self the easier it is to connect with intuition.

Power of Words Exercise: 

The following Exercise requires a journal. Spend about 15 minutes with each of the following words. Take the list of words below one at a time. Take the word and put it on top of your piece of paper…for the next 15 minutes very rapidly write down any and all things you feel, sense, etc. about the word. Don’t think just spill it. After your 15 minutes are up review your page(s). This may give you plenty to think about and to address. When you are ready in a few days, weeks, whatever it takes, move onto the next word. At least two days between each word is recommended.

1. Death
2. Unkind
3. Light
4. Darkness
5. Spirit
6. I AM
7. Divinity
8. Grief
9. Truth
10. Love

Transcending Reality Exercise: 

Within our body, we carry our own band, orchestra and symphony and vocal chorus. There is drum of the heart beat echoing through every cell of your body…the symbol of your reason for living. Then the wind instruments created from the sound of your own breath in the act of breathing, the sound of the blood moving through your own veins and arteries, the sounds of the neurons firing in your nervous system, the sounds of the tendons and muscles stretching and relaxing as you go about all of the functions and processes of every day life.  A Taoist walking Meditation…The simplest way to access transcendent reality is to walk. Walk nowhere, with no purpose except to experience the walker in the process of walking…one foot in front of the other. Look at no-thing. Don’t become distracted by focusing on anything. Allow your vision to broaden and you will see everything…all of the things you might have missed if your attention had become transfixed on some-thing. Listen to no-thing. Don’t become distracted by all of the sounds around you, but let them pass through you…and as you do, you will hear things that you never would have before. The same applies to your senses of feeling, taste, smell…and the emotions that arise from within you. As you place one foot in front of the other, allow yourself to become aware of the whole mechanism of your walking – the pressure of the individual points on the ground, the flexing of the tendons and muscles, the movement of your skin, the way the weight transfers all of the way up your body and down again as you take another step. Even deeper results can be obtained by combining this with deep conscious breathing as you walk. Be aware of the majesty of the inner orchestra responsible for each fluid motion…and how each movement is part of the breath and each breath part of the beat of the Universal Heart.

Week-Long Spiritual Journal:

Hold yourself accountable for your practice of yoga on and off the mat for one week using this Spiritual Journal PDF as a guide.