What is spiritual maintenance? How do I know if I need it, and what exactly does this kind of repair entail? Come and find out.
Our modern world measures our worth based on our commercial output and our return on investment. It does not consider our health and welfare. To enjoy life, we need to be healthy. So, we need to take time to perform routine maintenance of body, mind, and spirit. We need to learn the signs that tell us we need a spiritual tuneup.
Let’s define our subject.
What is Spiritual Maintenance?
Spiritual repair is about adding or doing more healthy things while removing or reducing the unhealthy ones. It’s a simple formula, but sometimes it’s hard to do. We’ll talk about why in a moment. A spiritual tuneup should be a part of your overall spiritual health plan. Does that make sense?
Maintaining the health of our spirit has a positive effect on the body, mind, and spirit. Some people need more maintenance than others do because they adopt unhealthy beliefs and habits. Everyone should know these warning signs, which tell us it’s time for routine maintenance.
Closed for Spiritual Maintenance Means?
You don’t have to go away for a six-month retreat to conduct the inner work to repair and revitalize your life. Most people don’t have the luxury of that level of free time. We have work to do. Life doesn’t stop just because we need to make some repairs. It means taking a little time from your daily routine to assess what you need and take the appropriate action.
The spirit or soul is synonymous with consciousness. It’s who we talk to inside our heads, that part of our awareness of experiencing reality. Some cultures call it The Observer. It is the real you.
This aspect of consciousness has nothing to do with religion or the belief or faith in imaginary beings. Do you see this point? Religion is often the source of the problem, and it is never the cure.
Here’s an important point to keep in mind. Everyone you meet is traumatized. Everyone includes you. No one is exempt from emotional and physical injury. People act inappropriately out of fear and pain, so it is important to deal with root causes.
When to Go Offline For Spiritual Maintenance
Are you ready? Here are the common signs that you need a spiritual tuneup (1).
Nightmares
Everyone has bad dreams from time to time, but recurring nightmares are a sign that something needs to be dealt with or corrected. It’s the issues behind the nightmare that need to be addressed. It won’t go away. When a dream or dream theme repeats, it is the subconscious mind trying to get our attention. You know the issue, but you have not dealt with it. Maybe you do not want to deal with it. Too bad. Your subconscious mind is telling you it is ready.
Nightmares sometimes appear in symbols or typologies of the underlying issue. Other times, dreams reveal past events. Nightmares are a way post-traumatic stress surfaces. If self-care solutions are not enough, reach out to a professional counselor. These are signs you need to go offline for spiritual maintenance. Therapy can bring structure to the process of healing.
Traditional healers are effective alternatives for healing emotional trauma. The Shamanic tradition has been used to treat emotional trauma and nightmares for centuries. It is where many of the techniques of modern psychiatry originate. They deal with dreams through counseling and the use of the spiritual journey.
Thoughts of Revenge
If thoughts of revenge dominate your thought-life, it is a sign you need to be closed for spiritual maintenance. It’s a huge red flag. Unfortunately, most people who have these thoughts don’t talk about it. Retaliation does not make the pain go away. Sadly, they don’t make this discovery until after they have acted out.
Self-awareness is key. If you are aware before you act on thoughts of vengeance and retaliation, you can stop them. With enough self-awareness, you can direct your emotions in another direction. Ask yourself, why am I having these thoughts? What are the outcomes if I follow through? Understand it’s a sign of emotional trauma. Anger is a typical response to trauma, but acting out does not address the underlying issue. Hurting others because you hurt does not make the pain go away.
It would be ideal to find a qualified spiritual healer like a shaman. They can help guide you through the steps to confront the source of the issues. Professional counselors are another good option. Talking with someone helps, as long as they do not encourage negative thinking. The more you dwell on things causing you distress, the harder it is to break the negative thought cycle.
We list revenge separately from the harmful thoughts and actions below for emphasis. Revenge, along with regret and religion, is one of the “three greatest burdens” of the mind.
Religious Fanaticism
Religion is one of the leading causes of emotional stress and spiritual injury. The more exposure you have to organized religion, the more likely you will suffer the effects. When you find yourself on this slippery slope, it’s to be closed for spiritual maintenance. Exposure to organized religion erodes your ability to think rationally and use common sense. People have real physical pain attempting to reconcile facts that contradict their beliefs. When people gather in groups, they are prone to act with a “mob mentality” and do things they would not normally do.
Fear, Fatigue, and Apathy
Fear, fatigue, and apathy go hand-in-hand. It can start with any of the three. It becomes a vicious spiral, one leading to the other. We tend to overlook fatigue because it is nearly a pandemic in the modern world — the same for fear and apathy. We fear the future because of rising tensions in the culture. Our workplaces ignore these, focusing on getting the most return on investment before you burn out.
These are symptoms you need to be closed for spiritual maintenance. One of the best and least costly solutions to these three is unplugging from some things for a while. Sometimes, even a two or three-minute break is enough to rest your emotional equilibrium.
Forgetful, Defeated, Depressed, or Board
Boredom, forgetfulness, and defeat are negative aspects of your personality and instinctual stack. These are mind-numbing elements that trigger our basic fears. When not challenged and bored, the mind wanders and shuts off. So, we blank out and thus become prone to forgetting things. Then, we forget something important, and we feel defeated.
Mental health issues are driven by the three entities that control the cultural narrative. Commercialism uses fear to promote unhealthy needs. Radical religious and political ideologies create conflict and tension to maintain control.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 2016 showed that 16.2 million US adults had had a significant depressive episode in the last year. This represents 6.7 percent of the US adult population.
Experts estimate that about 20 percent of the US population experiences moderate ongoing symptoms of depression. That means “the walking wounded” refers to one out of five adults.
Harmful Thoughts And Actions Toward Yourself or Others
A lot of our negative thinking comes from our inner critic. It is that aspect of our Ego that stresses the negative. The Ego does this to keep control. It sparks destructive behaviors and addictions. Harmful thoughts lead to unhealthy thought patterns, which always escalate. We can become harmful to ourselves and others if we don’t find a way to intervene in this downward spiral. The negative behavior may start with verbal criticism and sarcasm, leading to yelling and demeaning. Then, this escalates to paranoid behaviors, like stalking or violence.
What is Spiritual Maintenance in Your Life?
Everyone has different needs, so let’s discuss the best remedies for the above symptoms. It all starts with repairing our thoughts. You heal your mind, body, and spirit when you fix your thoughts.
Organized religions don’t want you to do this kind of “checkup” because they cause many of the problems listed above. So, if your spiritual leader discourages you from using any of the remedies listed below, it’s a good sign that you are in an unhealthy place.
Let’s get started. Ask yourself what is spiritual maintenance and what do I need to do or stop doing. The treatments fall into two categories: the things you should do and the things you should stop. So, let’s look at that list of things you should do.
You’ll feel it almost immediately when you do something good for your soul. But if it goes away quickly, it could be because you have something getting in the way. The things that impede our soul maintenance are often associated with habitual practices. Habits can also become addictions.
Things To Do When Closed For Spiritual Maintenance
These are the things that focus on promoting wellness.
1) The Shamanic Journey is probably the first spiritual technology ever developed. It uses sound and imagination to open the fifth state of consciousness, which Michael Harner calls the Shamanic State of Consciousness (SSC). Using a drum beat facilitates control of heart rate and breathing. Then, the imagination opens the subconscious mind to a landscape of primal symbolism. This frame of consciousness is what guided meditation is all about. It’s how to get the conscious mind offline for spiritual maintenance.
2) The mind is like a computer. It works better to unplug it for a few minutes and then restart it. So, the simple two-step meditation technique is the quickest way to disconnect the active mind. This mind hack is the first go-to remedy when you have any of the symptoms above (except for nightmares).
3) Solitude. It’s even easier than meditation. Some people can do this in a group, but most of us will benefit from being alone. Solitude is not loneliness. Again, you can feel lonely in a crowd. Solitude gives us time to observe. It goes well with our next tactic.
4) Mindfulness meditation builds on the basic two-step meditation. You can do this either seated or while moving. It’s an easy way to disengage from worry and stress, and it’s one of the primary mental tools for the modern world.
5) Samadhi is the fourth state of consciousness, the transcendent state where we enter the sublime state of restful alertness. You can reach this state with Japa Meditation or the more commercially available Transcendental Meditation (TM). Both processes are the same.
6) Moving meditation is a great way to cultivate spiritual energy to bring the grounding of seated meditation into action. When you engage in moving meditation, you are bringing the power of the transcendent into action.
7) Self-care is another essential element for repairing and recovering. The appropriate self-care relieves stress. Make sure the focus is on activities rather than merchandise.
8) The Enneagram personality profile is a tool for identifying the thought scripts of personality and instinct. It helps us distinguish between the programming of the cultural narrative and the Ego.
Things to Avoid or Stop When Offline For Spiritual Maintenance
1) Eliminate your exposure to groupthink manipulation. Organized religion is by far the most significant contributor to negative programming. 95% of negative social programming starts here. It is programming that contains sectarianism and religious bias that justifies discrimination and bigotry. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are the religions responsible for promoting everything from genital mutilation to genocide. Religious fanaticism is responsible for violence of all shapes and sizes. Stop supporting it.
2) Don’t watch or listen to propaganda disguised as news. Disinformation is harmful programming. An excellent example of this is the TV program Fox News. It is not news but religious-based propaganda.
3) Do not take on the role of a victim. It is not a healthy coping strategy. When you are a victim, you are more susceptible to the rhetoric of religious extremism and conspiracy theories.
In Conclusion
If you have any of the symptoms above, take action. It’s okay to be closed for spiritual maintenance. Don’t overlook the warning signs. If you need to rest and repair, then do it. You’ll be glad you did.
References
(1) Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications: The National Library of Medicine