Being Spiritually Aware

‘Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, we cannot live without a spiritual life.’ – Buddha

Spirituality: we all have some sort of vision in mind when we hear the word ‘spirituality’. Maybe it's an image of a group of monks living a simple life in a faraway place. Perhaps it's a vision of someone wandering down a mythological spiritual path on their ‘spiritual journey’.

With mindfulness, there is no spiritual path, because there is no need to go anywhere. You're already there. You just haven't realized it.

Quite simply, spirituality is a sense of being part of something bigger, more eternal than the physical and yourself.

Like many of the world's religions, spirituality is an awareness of and a relationship with something that connects you to a purpose in life larger than yourself.

You don't have to be religious to be spiritual. Even if you regard yourself as an atheist, you can feel a sense of connection from contemplating a beautiful sunset or the power of the sea.

Spirituality helps you to be mindful because it can anchor you and give you perspective – to be aware of where you are and how you're connected in the greater scheme of things.

You can choose to define what that means for you, in whatever way feels most appropriate. Your own sense of spirituality can be experienced by anything from cheering your team along with ten thousand other people to something as simple as gazing at a star-filled sky.

Spirituality helps you to feel grounded in the present and connected to the past and the future.