Spirituality is a Verb

Maybe you attend a church or synagogue or mosque or temple. Maybe you read scripture or are knowledgeable about the philosophies behind your religion. Maybe you dress a certain way, sit a certain way and meditate a certain way. But those are all just things your ego is doing. Spirituality is a verb. It is an act of love. It doesn’t discuss what should be done by us or others. It acts. It is love in motion.

Take all of the energy you currently put into telling others how they should vote, how they should eat, what manners they should have, what opinions they should have of what people, places or things, plus take all of the energy you put into religious rituals and invest all of that life force into sharing more love. Use it to hold open a door for someone or give up the good parking space to someone else. Buy the next person in the drive-through their coffee. Look after someone’s kids so they can go on a date night. Offer to help a neighbour with something. Pick up some litter. Take in a rescue dog. Instead of being impatient with the crying baby in the check-out lineup, try to see if you can help. Or let them ahead of you in line.

There are a million ways in which we can all make the world a much better place. Every day we all sit and complain about how it is all while we pass up countless opportunities to do nice things. In doing so we lose the wonderful feeling that goes with generosity. We don’t say hello to people we pass. We don’t smile at strangers. We don’t compliment people. We don’t demonstrate patience, offer assistance to others or slow down to offer condolences to those who are suffering. We steal loving experiences from ourselves by saying we’re busy, that we have obligations or that we don’t know how to respond. In truth all we’ve ever needed to do with others is Be Present.

Start today. Put three circles on a post-it note and check one off for every intentional good deed you do. Make it something out of the ordinary. Buy someone having a bad day a lottery ticket and wish them luck. Buy the favourite beverage of a co-worker you don’t like and give it to them. Make rather than buy (even if you’re terrible at things like that) a card for your spouse. Do a chore that’s normally not yours to do. Or here is one of the most valuable ones because you are shifting negative energy into positive energy: show kindness and generosity when you’re unfairly attacked by someone.

The world won’t get better when other people smarten up, it’ll get better when we make it that way with our actions. It is literally filled with opportunities for us to enact our inner beauty. Don’t pass yours up. It’s an easy, fun way to build yourself a truly wonderful life.

How are you going to start loving the world?

peace. s

Scott McPherson

I help people achieve better mental health by teaching them about reality.