Making Time for Spiritual Wellness (in 17 minutes a day)
In my personal development journey, I’ve made time for my physical health with exercise and my mental and emotional health with journaling and working with a trauma therapist. I realized that I’ve only been minimally engaging in activities to nurture my spiritual health.
What is spiritual health?
To clarify, spiritual health is not limited to religion. Spiritual health is the sense of connectedness to our mind, body, spirit, universe, and others. It is the connection of your inner and outer worlds to support your values and purpose.
Why is spiritual health important?
Spiritual health helps cast a positive glow on the world around you and your place in it. It gives you a sense of peace that your life has a higher purpose. With optimal spiritual health, I am able to reach my goals with a positive mindset and to handle obstacles to these goals productively instead of shutting down and losing hope.
My spiritual health is supported by daily habits.
What are my daily spiritual habits?
1. Morning Mantras
2. Nightly Rosary
3. Nightly Mantras
4. Meditation
How do I make time for spiritual habits?
I work full time as a software engineer, write romance books, and homeschool my seven-year-old daughter. Before I initiated these spiritual daily habits, I assumed it was going to take a lot of time, but you know what they say about assuming, right? Always assess; don’t assume.
I always say: Try it first, get the data, and then make an assessment.
Assumptions without the data are not reliable.
So, I timed how long these spiritual habits take.
Morning Mantras
Time: ~ 1 minute 30 seconds each mantra
Before I get out of bed in the morning, I grab my mala beads and say a mantra. I purchased beautiful Palo Santo wood mala beads from The Sanctuary Store.
Mala beads are usually in strands of 108 beads. Bracelet-length strands and rings are used for shorter meditations. Mine are 108 beads long. I say a mantra 108 times as I touch each bead.
My mantra will vary depending on how I am feeling and what intention I want to set for the day.
For example, this morning, my mantra was, “My success is inevitable.”
Nightly Rosary
Time: 9 minutes
I am Catholic. This will be the second year I will be teaching Sunday School to third graders. It had been a long time since I’d prayed the rosary. Somehow, I thought it would take me too long to pray the rosary every night. I possibly associated the long length of time to when I prayed the rosary as a child.
I downloaded the Hallow app and started doing a guided rosary prayer every night. I set the playback speed to 2x. Some Catholics may shudder at the rapidity, but I also I listen to audiobooks and podcasts at 2x speed. It works for me.
Nightly Mantras
Time: ~ 1 minute 30 seconds each mantra
I use my mala beads and say a mantra again at night. My nightly mantra these days is, “I like myself. I love myself.”
Meditation
Time: 5–15 minutes
I have a Miracle Membership with Gabby Bernstein. My daughter likes to join in with me and do a “Gabby” meditation. We select some crystals, close our eyes, and follow the guided meditation. We bought a variety of gorgeous crystals from The Sanctuary Store.
Some nights, my daughter doesn’t feel like meditating and that’s okay!
Total time: 17 minutes (with 5-minute meditation)
Of course, your total time will vary depending on how long your meditation practice takes and how long of a mantra you are saying.
My experiment is an example of how you can start your own daily spiritual habits without spending too much time.
