Finding Balance By Caring For Your Spirit

What does it mean when someone asks if you are caring for your spirit? Basically, it means that you’re intentionally taking time to check in with yourself by looking inward to see what spaces within you are thriving, bruised, depleted, or in need of immediate attention.

Caring for your spirit doesn’t require you to belong to a specific faith tradition, or even have a faith tradition at all. It really is as simple as connecting to whatever is Holy and meaningful to you. It’s a way to make a deep soul connection and know that you are a part of something.

One of the benefits of caring for your spirit is that it strengthens your mind, body spirit connection. And I keep saying the mind, body, and spirit connection. I feel a lot of times we think all of those things are separate from each other when they’re really very much connected and need to remain connected in order for the whole of who we are to be healthy and healed.

So what does the mind, body, and spirit connection mean?

Imagine that you’re on a tightrope. You’re walking across this thin rope with this bar in your hand and on either end there’s a bucket filled with water. On the left is your mind bucket. Your spirit is on the right. As you’re walking across, the bucket on the left side begins spilling water out. Now, the left bucket weighs less than the right creating an imbalance. The bucket on the right side will begin to go down because it’s now heavier than the bucket on the left. As you move forward, your arms began to tire from this imbalance and now it’s wobbling on both sides.

That bar is connecting one bucket (mind), the bar which is the body (you), and the other bucket (spirit) is now out of balance and out of whack because the body is trying to compensate for the mind bucket, losing its water and the spirit bucket pulling heavily to the right. All of those things are now out of balance. In order for it to remain in balance, you need to tend to all of your buckets and yourself. So that one is connected to the other, but everything is in harmony and in balance, allowing you to walk across that tightrope without spilling any of your water.

Benefits we all can use

That is the benefit of caring for your spirit. It helps you to connect to yourself on a deeper level. It allows you to look inward and not just take care of what you look like on the outside, but to actually go inward and begin to see and hear what it is that your soul is telling you.

It also helps to reduce anxiety and reassures you that you’re connected to something greater than yourself. That you’re not standing alone trying to navigate this world and life by yourself. Caring for your spirit helps to give you a sense of purpose and meaning, and it also helps you to focus on your own inner wisdom.

Other benefits are it brings out compassion and empathy for the whole of you and connects you to others. It helps you look at the world through a lens that brings about optimism and helps to bring out your joy.

Meditate on these things. – Phil 4:8

One of the ways that you can care for your spirit is through one of the various types of meditation. You could try deep breathing, mindful meditation, or visualization, or it could just be something as simple as sitting quietly and repeating a positive affirmation or mantra to yourself. It could be centering prayer, where you take scripture, and focus on that scripture while listening to what it is God is saying to you.

All of these things help you to connect to yourself on a deeper level. It allows you to reflect on who you are and what you want in your life, which could be great for journaling. It also helps to open you up to new experiences because you’re not so closed off anymore. Once you’re able to delve within yourself and look at who you are, you’re able to then experience more and to show up differently when you are out in the world.

Keeping your buckets filled, and not overburdened or depleted, will then bring about balance in to all areas of your life.