What’s the difference between dieting and spiritual growth? Pretty much nothing. Growth for both involves making conscious changes related to having greater awareness of what’s going on inside in relation to what’s happening outside of us. Let me explain.
Let’s start with dieting.
When we go on a diet, we make decisions to cut back on serving portions, eliminate some foods and avoid eating at certain times. We start an exercise program helping our body burn off some of the extra weight.
The first week, we’re quite disciplined with our new routine. We make our meals, along with the meals for the family. We even find the time to get to the gym 3 days this week.
We’re pleased that our clothes seem to be fitting loosely but the weigh scale isn’t reflecting much of a weight loss. A little bummed from not seeing a better number on the scale, we hang in there and decide to give it another week.
Meal planning and exercising for the second week is going well. Towards the end of the week we’re struggling with having to make all the meals ourselves. Why doesn’t anyone help us? Our work schedule and personal life are busier than normal causing us to skip a few meals and shift our exercising times.
We continue to pay attention to how our clothes fit and surprisingly this week we lose a bit more weight. We’re still optimistic heading into the third week, but it’s getting difficult to stay disciplined and do everything ourselves.
The next week presents so many temptations. There’s a special event at work and a big birthday party taking place on the weekend. We’ll be around a lot of co-workers and family members. There’ll be food galore including our favorite desserts, not to mention birthday cake. There goes our diet! So much for all the weight we’ve lost up to now!
Have you ever experienced something like that for yourself?
We have days and weeks when we’ve been so disciplined making positive changes for ourselves and then get to the one or two situations where we aren’t disciplined, can’t control ourselves and think we’ve failed. We’re back to square one and feel like we haven’t grown at all.
We get so caught up in physical things like over-eating, lack of exercise, clothes that don’t fit properly and the numbers on the weigh scale.
The sad part is…growth has happened and continues to take place with every new experience. There just isn’t the awareness of what that could look like.
We aren’t allowing ourselves to recognize things like dieting requires us to grow in awareness of what’s going on inside in relation to what’s happening outside of us. We can’t make changes to our physical body without those changes impacting all our other bodies.
Now moving on to spiritual growth.
Spiritual growth involves making a choice to improve something within ourselves helping us become better human beings. This includes things like not taking comments personally, not always arguing or not continually criticizing others.
Let’s say we go about our week setting our intention on being more accepting of others. Instead of arguing, we’re going to get along with them.
We’re in a good space as we head out for the day. During a few of our interactions with others we easily let go of what people are saying and walk away feeling kind of proud that we didn’t argue with them. This happens for a few days leaving us to feel like we’ve grown spiritually. Great feeling inside.
The next day we’re talking with one of our siblings. Doesn’t take long and we’re totally in an argument feeling frustrated to the point we’re now angry with them. The conversation ends quickly and for the next few days we’re still fuming inside thinking about what they said.
Then we’re talking with a friend and think about the intention we made regarding our spiritual growth. We feel badly for not being able to stop arguing and don’t know if we’ll ever be able to accept others!
Have you ever felt something like that for yourself?
We have two and three days where we’ve experienced favorable results and get to the one situation where we have an argument leaving us to feel like we haven’t grown at all.
The sad part is growth has taken place in more ways than we know. There just isn’t the awareness of what that could be.
Growth involves gaining greater awareness of what’s going on inside in relation to what’s happening outside of us. It’ll be through every interaction we have with others that helps us to appreciate how much we have grown spiritually.
That’s why I love the work I do. I’m blessed to be able to guide people to heal and resolve the conflict inside…as well as grow in self-awareness and gain greater emotional intelligence.
For us to become better human beings we need to be aware of the beautiful elements involved in the growing process. Elements both inside and outside of us and how they naturally compliment each other leaving us to feel more at peace inside.
Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, may you find your own truth, find what works for you and you'll always be guided to feel at peace inside.
Sheila Unique, Emotional Intelligence Specialist
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