How To Think About the Spiritual Path

The spiritual path is not for the faint of heart. It is both the toughest of life’s paths and the most rewarding. All journeys on this path are unique, but all lead to the same place: total love and oneness.

The path requires alignment of mind, body, and spirit—all are a part of you. One without the other leads to imbalance, and it’s important to recognize and nurture all aspects of you. Let me show you what’s worked for me in each of these spaces.

 Mind

Your mind is trying to process all available information to protect you. The problem: it gets tripped up. We live in a world of constant fear-based stimulation. Most of modern society is designed to feed and profit off of your mind. So how do you short-circuit that?

1. Pause your mind – This is effectively what meditation is and why it’s so powerful. Some meditators use a mantra so as to have one repetitive thing to repeat. This helps unwind cyclical thoughts. It breaks the mind free from it’s shackles. It stops the churn. I can’t recommend it enough.
2. Nourish your mind – Expand your knowledge through nonfiction. Acquire wisdom through spiritual texts. Learn new skills whether that’s music, sports, or something else.  Gain exposure to new subjects through documentaries and art. All of these help strengthen and expand the mind.
3. Be careful what you feed your mind – Your mind is not impenetrable; in fact, it’s just as vulnerable as your body and spirit. Don’t feed your mind junk food (e.g. drama series, mindless videos, negative messaging.) Anything that keeps you caught in a loop is designed to consume you—and what you feed your mind is what you’ll get back.

Body

Our bodies are not just sacks of meat and bones. They’re hyper intelligent and have more going on than we can imagine. One might argue that most trauma in the body is of direct relation to the mind and spirit. It is our physical manifestation of our spiritual state. So it’s our work to repair and strengthen it, because doing so can also repair and strengthen our spirit. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Focus on flexibility – Yoga has been around for thousands of years. Why has it stood the test of time? Because of its power. Yoga will unlock your body, which unlocks your mind and spirit. A flexible body means flexible thoughts.
2. Do not poison your body – Alcohol, drugs, caffeine, pesticides—to the body, all are toxic. We have somehow decided that they are okay and even normal. I’m not sure who decided that, but count me out. I know it’s hard to get rid of these, but the more you do, the more you will feel your body heal itself.
3. Remember that you are what you eat – Your body wants nutrients from nature, food as fresh as possible with as few chemicals as possible. Plants are great. And, meat? Ask: Are you eating an animal that bathed in fear and chemicals its whole life? Or one that was healthy and happy? Avoid the former if you can.

Spirit

This concept may sound unfamiliar, because for much of society, it is. Since we were kids, we were told to repress our spirit and rely on the mind. Spirit is your intuitions, feelings, emotions. It’s your heart—and it needs to be worked and nourished. Here’s how you can do that:

1. Feed your spirit – Just like your body and mind, the spirit needs to be fed! When’s the last time you blasted music? Danced in the rain? Acted silly and ridiculous? All these things feed your spirit, keeping it alive and healthy.
2. Heal your spirit – Repressed trauma is something we all have, and keeping it repressed eats us on the inside. Conversely, getting it out heals us. Meditative writing, therapy, counseling—all help heal our spirit and strengthen it.
3. Listen to your inner spirit – It’s a cliche, but your gut is your guide. If something feels off, don’t ignore that feeling. Figure out why. To build your relationship with your spirit, start listening to it. The more you practice, the clearer it will start communicating.

These are just some tips and examples, and the more you do this work, the more of your own techniques you will find and perfect. The spiritual path is both unbelievably challenging and unbelievably simple. It has been a secret weapon in building incredible companies, and now I’m thrilled to share it with you all.