Declutter Your Spiritual Practice

Wait, WHAT?  My last post came from an odd phrase in my journal with the Power or More, but now my Morning Pages revealed this wacky statement.  Deep breaths, questions flinging to and fro inside my head.  I held my pen like Jimmy Fallon writing a thank you note and waited for the music.  I need more information, what’s the rest of this message?  Silence. Not inside my head of course, but that inner voice, that calm clear intuition that comes in with commanding certainty, had gone offline.

This was a few weeks ago.  I write these three pages nearly every day and nothing along this line has returned.  I have been thinking about it a lot.  What does this mean?  I don’t “do” that much spiritual practice as it is, some meditation, prayer treatment work, a couple of daily readings, the Morning Pages. I don’t do all of this every single day but I have a pretty good track record.  And if you saw what I really need to declutter in my office area, dining room table and garage, you would be laughing just like I was instead of actually getting something done.

To the best of my recollection, I have never heard this phrase before.  It came through me as a complete instruction, “Declutter Your Spiritual Practice”.  I kept thinking and contemplating its meaning as a form of meditation.   Should I be doing less of something, more of something, something completely different?  Should I spend more time reading or more time meditating?  Pray more, read less?  Add something new, take out something I was doing??  None of this sounded like decluttering to me.

What to do?  I let it go, trusting I would get an answer at some point.  A few days ago, I did.

I happened to read Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement speech at UC Berkeley before the video was posted everywhere.  Reading her words had a huge impact on me and I had the opportunity to be firmly grounded in them before watching her speak with all of the emotion- hers, the audience and mine. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275924

Her journey in coping and living her life after the recent death of her husband led her to learn the seeds of resilience and how they are planted in the three P’s; personalization, pervasiveness and permanence.  But one thing she now does that she did not do before is to write down three moments of joy each night before she goes to bed.

She has taken gratitude, blessings and being present to a whole new level.  This was my answer.  I have been focusing on recognizing joy in my life for the past few years. It has led me to more beauty in my surroundings, peace of mind and personal fulfillment.  Her practice of writing down three moments of joy each night made me realize that my spiritual practice had become more of a “have to” then a “get to”.  I was getting through it at times, instead of being fully engaged in it.   My spiritual practice is not something I “have to” do before I start my day and hit my “To Do” list, it is an opportunity each day that I “get to” do.

The nuts and bolts of it don’t matter that much. We each have our spiritual practices or preferences and we can change them if they feel stale or boring or we need to shake up our routine.  But maybe from time to time we need to declutter the energy and expectation around all of it.  We can mindfully dive more deeply into the “get to.”