How is Your Spirituality Helping you Find Greater Enjoyment & Motivation in Life?
What makes you feel whole? Do you love your life, your career, and yourself? Do you feel satisfied and fully alive, with a sense of meaning and purpose? Do you feel connected and engaged with the world around you and with something greater than yourself? If you’ve got a nagging feeling like something’s missing, you’re not alone. It’s not always easy to figure out what’s missing from our lives. That’s the time to consider this question: How is your spirituality?
Why is your spirituality an important point to ponder? We know that when we’re hungry we need food. If we’re thirsty we need water. But sometimes we even get those things confused… we think we’re hungry when we actually need to drink more water. It’s no wonder, then, that we confuse signals from our emotions, minds, and bodies.
After all, some very well-known and powerful people have spent their entire lives acquiring money and possession, while sacrificing their health and relationships. They may view spirituality as a woo-woo thing, something for weak minds. Only to find that they still feel empty. Somewhere along their journey they ignored or misinterpreted the signals their mind, body, and spirit were sending them.
We must find harmony between the body, mind, and spirit
We cannot continue to consider ourselves as segmented beings. For a simple example,
my taste buds love my husband’s homebrewed beer. If I only focus on that and drink it, pleasing my taste buds, I’ll suffer for days with a foggy brain and low energy, because the rest of my body can’t handle it.
Knowing that fact, I, as a whole being, say “skip the beer”. Resisting that momentary urge reinforces my value for living energetically. I can enjoy a different beverage and connect with my husband through something much more healthy and satisfying.
Another common way we segment our lives is by talking about a work-life balance. Pushing yourself to “get through work, so you can get back to living” isn’t the key to a full and meaningful life. Learn to feel engaged with yourself and your world, no matter what you’re doing. Seek ways to recognize, nurture, and freely own your spirituality in everything you do. Connect what you’re doing with your values.
Being spiritual isn’t the same as being religious. While for many, their spirituality is deeply connected to a religious belief system, others pursue a personal spirituality outside of a traditional religious system. This is an important distinction for life coaches to grasp.
“Spirituality is the moment when you feel deeply connected with something greater than yourself. It’s a deep sense of warmth, love, and gratitude when your work is personally satisfying and meaningful for others. In that moment, you feel connected to others, the planet, and the greatness of the Universe.” — Maria Connolly
That deeply engaged, connected feeling is spirituality. Those moments of spirituality are easier to recognize and hang onto through a practice of mindfulness that helps you experience each moment fully. That’s how we pay attention to the signals our mind, body, and spirit are sending us. This is so important! No matter how committed or responsible a person feels, he or she will become bored, disappointed, unmotivated, or resentful if the spirit is not nurtured.
As coaches, how do we personally develop our spirituality? And more, how can we support our client’s sense of spirituality, if it differs greatly from that of our own?
- Help your clients be empowered by their core values as they work towards goals that are both personally and professionally meaningful.
- Help them connect their inner self and personal passions with the day-to-day work.
- Help them reflect on when they feel fully alive and full, whether at work or at home.
- Help them extend this spirituality toward others, as they assist employees, friends, and family to find meaning in their work and fulfillment in their relationships.
- Help them grow in wisdom and their sense of wonder and delight as you speak of loving, hopeful, and inspiring things.
How is your spirituality expressed practically?
Take for example a client who wants to improve their job situation. Rather than focusing on the results of achieving job goals and performance benchmarks, as a transactional coach would, you’d focus instead on the spiritual growth and fulfillment of the client. When you do, it allows magic to happen!
As they achieve that feeling of satisfaction and expansion, their performance will increase as a natural consequence – without the pressure to perform. Nurturing and supporting the person’s spirit makes their skills blossom. They naturally support organizational objectives, resulting in extraordinary payoffs.
As life coaches, embodied leaders, and mentors, we must remember to model the behavior we expect from others. Start with your own sense of connection. Be willing to laugh at yourself, not taking yourself too seriously. Embrace the journey of spiritual growth, not expecting perfection. Then your energy will be as profound as your coaching. If you’d like to shift your focus from attaining goals and results to nurturing the whole person — mind, body, AND spirit — I’d love to help. Contact me and schedule a free 30-minute consultation to see which one of my programs or services is best for you.