As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have been spending some time trying to find and incorporate spiritual practices in my everyday life.  It seems I have a gift for research, but when it comes to putting that into real-world practice, I get a bit lazy. To combat this, I have been researching (yeah, I know) which spiritual practices I should include in my day-to-day routine in order to become more mindful, get in touch with my consciousness, you know – all that good stuff.

The problems we all face when considering additional obligations -even those of a spiritual nature- are the limitations of our time and energy. We lead incredibly busy lives. We are stressed out, distracted, and stretched thin. Adding a long or complicated spiritual routine to an already busy life is not going to work for anyone.  Like that January diet and gym routine or that commitment to learn Russian, complicated additions to our life fade as other obligations begin to crowd them out.

With that in mind, I researched everything from eastern philosophy to self-help books and found repeated recommendations for these specific practices. For the time and energy required, they would seem to advertise the greatest benefits, encouraging spiritual experiences such as lucid dreaming, positive manifestations, after-death communications, and spiritual guidance as well as the more practical benefits of calming stress, gaining clarity and contentedness. Certainly, there are plenty of spiritual practices that can improve our spirituality, perspective, mood and relationships, so please do explore and incorporate what works best for you.

Without further ado, I present to you three important daily practices for increasing your spirituality (without over-complicating your life).  If you’ve tried any of these, or would like to recommend other practices that have helped increase your own spirituality, please share in the comments.

Pay Attention to your Dreams

Remembering more of your dreaming life helps you examine your fears and the contents of your subconscious mind, as well as priming your consciousness for lucid dreaming or out-of-body experiences.

Supposed Benefits:

1. Increases your chances of becoming lucid while dreaming or having an out-of-body experience
2. Provides opportunities to receive messages from loved ones (ADCs) or spirit guides
3. Helps to resolve issues in life by bringing subconscious worries to the conscious mind
4. Provides the opportunity to recall visitations to the spirit world

How to do it:

1. Avoid falling asleep with a television or radio on, or set a sleep timer so you are not distracted when you wake up.
2. Keep a dream journal. Go the old-fashioned route and put a notebook and pen by your bed, or go high-tech and download a journal app on your phone.
3. Each night before you go to sleep, remind yourself that you will remember your dreams.
4. If you wake up after dreaming, immediately write down everything you can remember before the dream fades.

Review your dreams later, and think of what they may mean. Are you having a lot of anxiety dreams?  Is there a theme that is coming up over and over? Are you dreaming of a specific person?  Some dreams may help you solve problems, or they may simply be a nonsensical mishmash of your day.  Learn to recognize the patterns in your dreaming and what it says about your waking life.

This method may help you remember spiritual dreams. According to Seth (channeled by Jane Roberts), we often go back to the spirit world in our sleep to visit friends and relatives, participate in discussions and to get advice, though we often don’t remember it without consistent work on enhancing dream recall.  You may even remember being visited by loved ones from the spirit world or from your spirit guide.

Once your dream recall is consistent, you can begin attempting techniques for lucid dreaming and/or out-of-body experiences. In either case, improving dream recall is essential for success.

Practice Daily Meditation

Meditation has been recommended by almost every spiritual teacher, guru, medium, psychic, and self-help expert. Daily meditation provides a number of benefits as well as providing the opportunity for some interesting spiritual experiences.

Supposed Benefits:

1. Meditation helps to lower stress, improve mood, and help to maintain a more balanced mind.
2. Can help cultivate a ‘higher mind’ state where you become an observer of of your own thoughts.
3. Meditation may help you discover latent mediumship abilities.
4. Auditory or visual after-death communications often happen during meditation when your mind is less distracted.
5. Meditation can be helpful for those trying to have out-of-body experiences. Jurgen Ziewe, author of several books about OBEs started his journey with meditation.
6. Spirit guides may be able to give you helpful messages while you are meditating, especially if you ask them for their assistance.
7. Certain types of guided meditation may assist with physical healing.
8. Daily meditators were proven in experiments by Dean Radin to be able to affect random number generators more easily than non-meditators.  If you are interested in PSI, ESP, telepathy or psychokinesis, meditation can make your abilities more refined.

How to do it:

There are thousands of books and videos on meditation and a myriad of different techniques, but most meditation practices seek to capture a feeling of unity with all things and total awareness of the ‘now’ moment. Guided meditation and visualization techniques can be used to accomplish a specific goal through the focused awareness of meditation.

There are a lot of meditation practices, so I will avoid trying to recommend a single style or type.  The type of meditation that you ultimately practice will depend on your personality and what works best and is most comfortable for you.  In fact, when you begin to meditate, it’s a good idea to try different meditation techniques to see what provides the best results.  There are plenty of online guides to assist in your choice. See the two links at the end of this section for ‘beginner’ videos to get you started.

If you are seeking meditation for ADCs, spirit guidance, or mediumship practice, your meditation practice will be somewhat different because during your meditation, you will be inviting sounds and images from spirits into your mind.  Here are a few resources if you are interested in using meditation to enhance psychic or mediumship skills:

• Amanda Linette Meder’s Blog Post on Psychic Meditation
• Psychic Meditation from Psychokinesis Powers

Whatever meditation you choose, there are a few tips that I have found helpful:

1). Start with five minutes on a timer. 

There will be plenty of meditation guides that tell you that proper meditation must be at least X minutes long, but if you find even five minutes uncomfortable, than forcing yourself to meditate for 20 minutes or an hour will only discourage you when you find you can’t keep it up every day. After a few weeks, try to work up to ten minutes.

2). Sit up when you meditate.

Meditating while lying in bed will likely cause you to fall asleep.

3). Be comfortable.

Dress in comfortable clothing and sit and breathe naturally. You do not need to sit in a lotus position, or do any kind of complicated breathing. Relaxation and comfort are key.

4). Try not to judge yourself while meditating. You aren’t trying to stop all thought.

It’s tempting to say, “Oh my god, I’m thinking. I’m not meditating. Crap! I’m still thinking! Stop thinking! Even that is a thought! Damn it.. I can’t stop thinking. This is hopeless.”

When this happens, just focus on your breath and come back to center. Meditation is not about stopping thoughts.  It is about being aware of the ‘now’ point.  Thoughts will happen.  Observe, then let them go.

There are some good introductory videos on YouTube by Koi Fresco (Koi’s Corner) if you are interested: https://youtu.be/NMeQ7aM-OXM

Here’s video on a technique for beginning meditation for people who find it hard to meditate from actualized.org: https://youtu.be/e4yipKfO8nA

Set Positive Intentions Each Day

Positive intentions are goals that are recited daily in order to increase the chance of having positive experiences and reactions to challenges, manifesting desired goals, and reminding one’s self to act in more positive ways.

Supposed Benefits:

1. Many spiritualists believe that you can manifest things into your life through positive intentions, as well as crafting a better reality for yourself.
2. You can live the wisdom that thousands of people have brought back from near-death experiences. Love and service to others are the most important things in life.
3. You may improve your life review and possibly even attain a higher spiritual plane after death, according to Jurgen Ziewe, author of Vistas of Infinity: How to Enjoy Life After You Die.
4. The power of positive thinking can help your spirit guides send you helpful guidance and clues. If you are open to opportunities, you will see your path more clearly.
5. Some studies have shown that more positive people are healthier, with less stress and lower blood pressure.

How to do it:

There are (at least) three types of positive intentions you can set daily:

Positive intentions for a specific goal or event, such as:

• I’m open to new job opportunities, and I know I’m going to find what suits me.
• I’m open to a healthy new relationship, and I’m going to be confident and positive and know that when the time is right, I will meet the right person.

Positive intentions to work on your character:

• I am not going to listen to that negative self-voice anymore. When it says I can’t, I will.
• I’m going to smile at random people on the street today instead of keeping my head down.
• I am going to really start listening to people instead of just talking at them.
• I’m going to offer forgiveness instead of holding grudges
• I’m going to stop being so judgmental towards others, and try to understand where they are coming from.

Positive thinking in challenging situations:

• Losing this job is tough, but now I will have the freedom to pursue something that I enjoy more/is closer/is better money.
• Money is tight, but I am prepared to work hard to find new opportunities.

Now, are there times when we just can’t think positively about a situation?  Of course.  When we are grieving, or when a loss cuts so deeply that we can’t see past it yet. There are times when anger is justified; if we are being hurt or abused, for example.  However, in most instances, with time, we can find positive lessons to be learned from even the most challenging event provided we don’t devolve into bitterness or revenge.  Once we have begun to heal from our losses, we can use the experience to help others and be more compassionate and understanding with those who have suffered like we have.

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So, what are your thoughts?  Have you tried any of these spiritual practices? What spiritual practices do you include in your daily routine? What positive intentions would set tomorrow to improve your day?