5 Unique Ways Spirituality Helps in Self-Improvement

Spirituality has a major role to play in what we become.

I often ask people about their strategies, options, and plans for self-improvement, and unfortunately, I never find spirituality on their list. There is psychology, physiology, science, etc. but no spirituality.

Whom shall I blame! There’re spiritually strange personalities, hokus-pokus rituals, and odd beliefs floating everywhere in the name of spirituality.

Weirdly behaving uncle, fortune-telling girlfriend, and organic-fasting friends (who fasts while inhaling organic air) have made a false image of spirituality in people’s heads, making them avoid spirituality at all costs.

But spirituality is none of these.

Spirituality allows you to uncover your actual personality and essence. It’s the process of sifting through your physical and emotional makeup to discover the core of who you are. It helps you change at a subtle level. At a deeper conscious level.

I know we all desire to be the “ideal” being who is free from all the negative thoughts, feelings of pain, and attitudes that bring mental chaos. I also know that spirituality can help us perform a complete internal overhaul freeing us from destructive, damaging, or detrimental thoughts.

How?

By shifting our awareness from mortal to eternal, from bodily consciousness to soul consciousness, and eventually from vice to virtue.

Since our troubles stem from our “desires,” spirituality empowers us to transform these negative characteristics into serenity, happiness, love, truth, and purity.

Here’s how spirituality helps us transform internally.

Transforming Greed into Happiness

Greed is a form of oblivion to our genuine selves!

True wisdom comes when I recognize that I am self-sufficient; I don’t require anything else from the outside world to complete me.

Greed gives the impression that more is better and that having more will make me happy. It is, however, a bottomless pit.

No one really needs the material comforts and the luxuries of life like a lavish bungalow or a posh car. What one needs is a “relaxation feeling” that arises from those feats. But, if we can attain those emotions of happiness from an understanding of what we truly need, we can win greed.

Adding to your assets does not satisfy your hunger. Because that hunger isn’t spiritual, it’s like feeding someone a five-course meal when all they truly needed was a bottle of water.

Inner contentment is the source of true happiness. Knowing that I already possess everything I require.

But, we all are running in a race with no aim. Just running. If we look within to know what we truly need and have, we can easily slow down the pace of our lives and enjoy the journey.

When we learn to be happy and content with whatever we have, a lot more will come naturally as a result of that energy.

Appreciating what you have attracts what you don’t.

Transforming Attachment into Love

We become attached, touchy, and overly sensitive in the name of love.

True love should strengthen and support rather than diminish. We feel compelled to hold on or attach ourselves to someone since it is not pure love but fear-based or expectation-based.

Allowing someone to be who they are, rather than trying to carve out and perfect them, is what loving someone means.

But, attachment to a certain image or an image we’ve conjured up in our imagination of them forces us to match the two, and in this quest, we gather pain, suffering, and agonies.

The person will return to you when there is (true) love involved; when there is attachment, the spirit will feel stifled and seek liberation elsewhere.

Spirituality helps us attain this mindset. Everyone is on a different journey with different goals, even if it’s your mother, father, spouse, or sibling. When that goal is met (i.e., karmic accounts are settled), the soul will leave the body and set off for a new journey, donning a new bodily costume and new relations.

“Everything you see is transient. Nothing is going to stay forever. When your body is temporary, how can any relationships associate with it be eternal!”

So, free yourself from the burden of changing anyone in order to love them.

Let love be love. Don’t name it!

Transforming Anger into Peace

“I feel peaceful after venting out frustration or expressing irritation.”

Very casually, we use this line in our everyday lives. Owing to this wrong mindset, we hurt ourselves and the people around us. We think that the way to peace is through anger. But it’s not. Anger only brings pain and chaos.

Why?

Rage is a secondary emotion, which means something else bothers you beneath the surface and manifests as anger. It’s a cry for help — we witness babies get furious when they want attention or when their nappy is soiled, and as adults, we continue to do the same thing in the hopes of receiving what we want.

Anger is a manipulative means of dominating a person or situation and a type of control. Fury paralyzes the person who is the target of the anger, forcing them to give in almost always in order to keep the peace.

We control our inner world when we are at peace, which is reflected in our outside environment. Spirituality teaches how to do that. When you filter your thoughts, behavior, and actions through the sieve of what outcomes it could generate, you’ll surely be cautious of your every thought and behavior.

Also, most things may be accepted with an inner serenity, including roaring exhausts, your partner slurping soup, youngsters continuously arguing, the neighbor grumbling, and the weather being “temperamental.”

We don’t strive to change people or situations; instead, we just go with the flow.

Only when there is no internal control do we strive to govern the outside. A restless mind produces a restless atmosphere.

Transforming Ego into Truth

The ego is a fictitious representation of ourselves that quickly dissolves due to its lack of substance. We make it to compensate for lack of genuine self-esteem. We also add to it when we want to illustrate a point or exert influence over someone.

We have given up our power in numerous ways, and as a result, we have very little left. We’ve made so many errors that we’re embarrassed to admit that we’re now attempting to live the truth while self-doubt creeps in. It’s almost as if we had to start over — a new life, a life based entirely on truth.

But, if we live with an attitude that we don’t have to prove anything to anyone, our lives would be truthful and are honest. We would be unwavering in our convictions.

Transforming Lust into Purity

Lust is a form of soul dilution. The desire for sexual satisfaction, power, and hunger are all examples of lust.

An essential thing to remember about lust is that it is an energy created outside of the self, and we rely on someone or something outside of ourselves to fulfill our needs. The joy we get after attaining our desired goal fades fast.

So, we must return to a pure, unadulterated, unspoiled, unmixed, authentic, and original condition.

And I can only achieve this by drawing on my own inner reserves and God’s light rather than relying on someone else’s. I clean out the old memory traces and remove all the old files of grief and sadness as I “unpollute” the mind and heart, leaving only goodness.

Final Thoughts

So it’s time…to change from mortal to eternal awareness. It’s time…to embrace our flaws and strive for a life of peace, joy, love, truth, and purity.

For far too long, we have relied on these flaws (anger, greed, attachment, ego, and desire) and have suffered far too much misery as a result. It is now time to practice virtues; it is more gratifying and has a longer shelf life.

Clear away the old files from your mental programming, so you’ll only have the good to retrieve in response to any given urge.

This week at Spiritual Secrets, I invite you all to share how spirituality helps in practical lives.