Five Essential Tools For Growing Your Spiritual Practice
Written By - Rebecca Lemke
Whether you’re a curious seeker, a baby witch, or a seasoned magic maker, infusing your life with these simple tools will solidify and amplify your spiritual practice.
Grounding
Grounding is the sense of being in your body and connected to the earth. When you are not grounded, you might experience a buzzing sensation, swirling thoughts, difficulty concentrating, or rollercoaster emotions. When you are grounded, it feels like all the dust has settled, like you are held and supported. You are no longer ruminating on the past or worrying about the future, and you are fully in the present.
It is important to begin any spiritual practice with grounding so you are anchored into your body as it becomes a vessel for energetic transformation. One quick and easy way to become grounded is by tuning into your senses, starting by sensing your feet on the ground or your butt and back in a chair. Feel the support as gravity anchors you to the earth. Then tune in to the sounds around you and name them. Orient yourself to the space you are in by naming some of the things around you or the colors that you see. Are there any smells in the air? Is there a taste in your mouth?
Here’s a grounding practice if you want to go deeper: close your eyes and imagine there are roots beginning to grow out of your feet or the base of your body, through the chair, right into the ground beneath you. Let these roots push through any floors or concrete beneath you as they grow deeper into the earth. Sense the depth of the soil and witness the roots branch out in all directions, growing tiny tendrils to absorb and release water and minerals. Allow the earth’s gravity to pull down any energy you’re carrying that is ready to go and let yourself release and relax into your roots. Feel the nourishing support of Mother Earth.
Energy Clearing
Energy Clearing is like taking an energetic shower, it clears out old energies and uplifts your whole energetic body. As we go about our lives we are constantly exchanging energies with the world around us and the collective at large. Just like hand washing or teeth brushing, it is important to routinely tend to our energetic body. Energy clearing opens us to replenish our authentic essence, and it creates space for sustainable energy sources to fill us up.
Energy clearing can be as simple as taking a few deep, intentional breaths throughout your day, focusing on the areas of your body where you feel tension as you inhale and then exhaling fully through the mouth. When you need a more thorough clearing, try a body scan like this one:
Start by resourcing an element; ground with the earth, feel into the air around you, imagine water filling you up or fire moving through you. Ask the energy of the element to cleanse and renew everything in its path as you focus your attention on each part of your body, one section at a time: feet, legs and hips; pelvic region and sexual organs; stomach and organs of digestion; chest (heart and lungs), shoulders, arms and hands; neck, mouth and airways, eyes and brain, and the crown of your head.
After focusing on each body center, take one to three deep, cleansing breaths. Channel your nasal inhale into the section being cleared and exhale fully through the mouth. Scanning from foot to head liberates the more dense energies, while scanning from head to foot assists in manifesting new ideas, beliefs or patterns.
Invoking
Invoking spirits or energies is a powerful spiritual practice where you call upon spirit to assist you in a given task or more generally throughout your day. Invocations are also gratifying simply for the sake of playing, celebrating, or honoring a spirit or energy. Invoking, or inviting in a spirit or energy means that energetic presence will work behind the scenes to support you energetically by bringing you ideas, helping you make connections, and assisting you however they can to fulfill your intentions and prayers. Please note, however, that spirits do not supplement your inaction, rather they support and guide you to make choices for your highest outcome.
There are innumerable spirits and energies you can call on, including your own spirit guides and ancestors, earth or planetary energies, the energy of elements or crystals, plant and animal spirits, archetypes, and countless spirits of cultural influences. You can call in the energy of a project you are working on, a career path you are headed down, or a community you are considering joining. You can also call on your own highest spirit, a future or past version of yourself, or different parts of your own psyche like your creative spirit, your spirit of compassion or your inner power. If you don’t feel called to work with any particular spirit (or if you do), you can simply call in Life Force Energy by whatever name you know it best (Spirit, Divine, Light of Creation, The Great Animator, Love, etc).
There is no limit to how many spirits or energies you can call in at a time, but it’s important to know that not all spirits have your best interest at heart. There are wounded spirits, dark energies, and spirits with selfish intent. What is reassuring is that no one can influence you without your consent, be it explicit or unconscious. That’s why we are specific when we call upon our spirit guides and helpers, asking for those who are serving love to connect, support, protect, and guide us.
Invoking a spirit might be as simple as calling in the spirits of the land you reside on as you plant or work in your garden, or calling in the energy of pleasure before biting into a juicy strawberry. For a more in depth practice, it’s important to consider psychic protections. Here is one example of what that can look like:
Create a container of safety by commanding that any spirits that do not serve love leave now. You can enhance the clearing with breath, sound or smoke, then set the intention that only benevolent spirits who serve love may enter.
Ground yourself and then, with an open heart, say “I now call in/invite/welcome” and state who you would like to invoke. After each spirit, take a pause to sense their presence. When you are ready, ask the spirits for their protection so as to further enhance the safety of your space. Then you can ask for guidance, clarity, inspiration or influence on a particular matter, or to help you hold space for a burden you carry.
Allow for a lot of space by taking pauses and deep breaths whenever your intuition calls you to. If you feel a message coming through, write or draw it in a journal so you can refer to it again at a later time.
Proceed with an activity or imagine the best possible outcome of the circumstance that you’ve asked for assistance with, fully embody the sensations that arise.
As you go about your day, notice if you get any impulses or unusual urges to do something or go somewhere. Spirit guides often don’t speak to us like a conversation, but rather influence us to go somewhere or do something or make something. Listen up when you get those impulses!
Once you feel complete, close out the space with palms together or on your heart, giving thanks to all you’ve called in.
Gratitude
Gratitude is a fundamental tool for a spiritual practice. Cultivating a consistent vibration of gratitude in your life can ward off unwanted energies and help you maintain a positive outlook when you experience turbulent vibrations. Practicing gratitude means sensing and giving thanks, but it also means giving back, this is where offerings come into your spiritual practice.
Offerings generate a sacred reciprocity with the forces that support and sustain you, building relationship and deepening connections. A simple gratitude practice can be offering small prayers of the heart; giving thanks to your body for holding you, to the earth for nourishing you, or to the universe for the people or circumstances in your life that bring you joy. Give thanks to the flame as you light a candle or to the water as you take a sip or to your pet for their companionship.
You can offer actions or services you provide by first setting your intention for sacred reciprocity and then holding a sensation of gratitude in your heart as you go. As you interact with spirits and energies, ask them what they appreciate as an offering. Offerings of food or flowers often delight well-healed ancestors. Things like honey, chocolates, bread, butter, herbs or roses from your garden can be left on your altar space while welcoming their presence with gratitude.
It is also important to acknowledge and show appreciation for the spirits of the land you reside on, and the original people who inhabited and tended that land. You can look up the original peoples of the land and make offerings to them as well (money donations to their organizations are great, too!).
Here is one way to ceremonially offer your gratitude:
Ask your spirit guides, ancestors, spirits of the land, or whatever spirits you feel called to work with what they would like as an offering and gather those things. Then, set a safe space as mentioned above, clearing any negative energies and grounding yourself.
Set the intention to honor and offer gratitude as you set out your offerings, then invoke the spirits. Take some time to commune with the spirits, share something like tea or a song with them, or simply rest in their presence. Offer your space and time with an open, grateful heart and remain receptive to any reciprocity they may offer. Keep a journal handy to write any messages that may come through, and follow any impulses that may arise such as laughter or tears, dance or art.
When you feel complete, close out the ceremony with palms together or to your heart, offering a final bow of gratitude. You may leave the offerings on your altar space for the rest of the day or clear them into the compost.
Integration
Integration with daily conscious effort is the main ingredient for cultivating a spiritual practice. There is not enough time every day to create a beautiful, ceremonial ritual experience, but setting an intention for daily practice plants seeds for spiritual growth to flourish. Keep it simple with some of the examples mentioned above.
Start your day by grounding and orienting yourself to the space around you. Take a few deep, cleansing breaths and invoke any benevolent spirits or energies you feel called to work with to spend some time with you. Knowing their presence is with you, feel free to converse with them throughout your day, asking for guidance and offering gratitude as you live your life. This can be done out loud or silently to yourself, keeping an open mind and heart.
You can come back to these simple tools several times throughout the day, any time you feel called by your intuition to reconnect, protect yourself, ground, or clear.
If you want to take your spiritual practice deeper, consider joining a community of like-hearted people who get you. Earth Speak now offers a sacred social networking app where you can connect with others who are carving out their own paths on this spiritual journey we call life.