What does it mean to be spiritually healthy? Well, that can be interpreted a couple of different ways. However, as I learned in the course of treatment for my bipolar depression, “spiritual” does not have to mean religious.
Instead, spiritual needs and spiritual health are about the intangible parts of the human experience that make life worth living.
Have you ever listened to a song that got you pumped up? Or maybe you’re an artist who finds creation fulfilling? Or have you felt that sense of satisfaction that comes after a job well done? These are all examples of spiritual feelings that aren’t religious.
But how do you nourish your spiritual health? Here are some common ways.
6 ways to improve your spiritual health and nourish who you are on the inside:
1. Do a regular activity that feels fulfilling and isn’t motivated by profit or performance.
In this world of grindset-mindset and side hustles, it’s so valuable to have hobbies and interests that aren’t motivated by profit. That includes hobbies like creating art and music, dancing, collecting, or doing some work by hand.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to feel pretty good and accomplished when I’m done building something by hand or doing some outdoor work.
Exercise and sports can also be a good choice. They help produce feel-good chemicals and facilitate the overall health of your brain and body.
The most important thing is to avoid turning the hobby into a burden. It doesn’t provide the same spiritual benefit when you start adding a profit incentive or productivity goals to the activity. When a hobby becomes a hustle, you can start inadvertently stressing yourself out because you’re not as good or as profitable as you want to be.
The act is what’s important, not the outcome.
2. Practice gratitude regularly to train your mind to look for the positives.
I cannot express the powerful role that gratitude plays in spiritual health.
As someone who’s been living with depression for a long time, it’s caused my brain to want to interpret everything negatively. For decades, I would regularly look for the awful in everything.
It got so bad that even after I started recovering, my brain continued to do that out of habit. I had to retrain my brain, and that’s where gratitude comes in.
It’s a simple, time-honored habit that can help train your brain to look for the positive in situations. I’ll give you an example. Years ago, if a waiter had got my order wrong, I would have been angry about it because that’s the job. And you didn’t get it right? As I worked on my anger issues, I looked for gratitude in the situation instead.
Okay, he got it wrong, but I have food. I can afford to buy food. I’ll have a full stomach. And this guy is probably doing the best he can. Being a waiter is hard work. I don’t think I could do it. Plus, I hate wasting food, so I’m not going to send it back to have it pitched in the garbage.
I shrug it off, I eat, I have a good time, I go home.
3. Learn how to let go of grudges.
I would have found the idea of not holding grudges ridiculous 15 years ago. After all, why would someone think they can just come at me with no repercussions? Do I look like a doormat? I don’t think so.
But here’s the thing: grudges are so one-sided. There’s a saying that’s evolved over time: “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
And it’s true. I kept myself angry about some circumstances for years because I wouldn’t let things go. I held onto it tightly because I was angry, I felt wronged, and that shouldn’t be forgotten. Right?
Well, the chances are pretty good that the people I was angry with didn’t think about it at all. They were not good people, and their wrong actions were just normal for them.
How do you change that perspective then?
Sympathy.
My anger dissipated when I looked at them as people and realized how profoundly unhappy or damaged they must be to treat their friends badly.
Why would anyone with a healthy mind and heart screw over other people? They wouldn’t. So it’s an unfortunate circumstance for everyone involved, and understanding that helped me release my old hurts.
4. Allow yourself to feel your negative emotions.
There’s a big mistake that I see people make often. That is, they don’t allow themselves the freedom to feel their negative feelings. But negative feelings are healthy for you. They are the way your brain processes tragedy and grief.
Granted, the struggle is often finding the time to do it. Like, I have things to do. I can’t sit around and be sad right now!
I worked around that by scheduling time to be sad.
At the time, I was going through a bad breakup while trying to work nights. The time I had during the day was usually spent trying to catch up on sleep for the coming night. However, shortly after work, I scheduled time when I would sit down and think about the situation and just let myself be sad.
It allowed me to process my emotions in a healthy way rather than suppress them.
5. Prioritize authenticity over image.
So many cultures have an overwhelming amount of social oppression baked into the system. So many cultures and societies have deeply conservative values, often derived from religions.
But what if you don’t fit into that system? What if you don’t fit into the culture that you’re a part of? That can be a challenging thing because societies generally want you to comply with the social order. That’s how they maintain the continuity of that order.
But sacrificing individualism that doesn’t actually hurt society at large isn’t really a fair trade. Instead, it just makes those of us who don’t fit in a neat, comfortable box unhappy. I tried for years to “fit in.” Turns out, I’m mentally ill, and that’s a big reason I never have.
But my mental health improved in leaps and bounds by discarding what was expected of me. I don’t try to keep up with trends, I don’t care what other people think of me, and I don’t chase anyone’s approval but my own.
A weight lifted off my shoulders when I had that epiphany.
6. Don’t cling to relationships and situations that are draining.
You only have a limited number of hours in your day. Why would you spend that time staying in a relationship you’re unsure of or a situation that drains you?
Now, I’ve been around long enough to know that we all have to make sacrifices and choices we don’t want to make. I’ve made them, too. However, there are a lot of times when I had better options and didn’t choose them.
For example, I was once in a relationship that I knew wasn’t healthy for me. She was not mentally well, was an alcoholic, and overall a very damaged person.
And though I tried to be as kind and understanding as I could be, I eventually realized that she wasn’t likely to change.
Instead of feeling bad and clinging on to the relationship for even longer, I decided to end it. My spiritual health improved after I did, and it would have improved quicker had I done it a lot sooner.
Final thoughts…
I’m going to tell you now, nourishing your spiritual health is challenging. Your spiritual health is just as important as your physical, mental, and emotional health, but my biggest stumbling block was accepting that as a valid thing.
That, and my trauma. For the latter, I needed the help of a certified mental health counselor.
You can’t necessarily think your way out of the bleak mental spaces that depression or trauma can create, so if you’re in a similar boat, don’t be ashamed to look for help if you need it.
