Spirituality 101: How to Cultivate Inner Peace
Spirituality is the art of making a home inside yourself.
It is the art of making a home inside yourself when everything around you seems chaotic, when things seem to be disintegrating, when the storms of life come your way, when nothing is going right, when things seem turbulent, when you feel misunderstood or invalidated, there is a comfort and strength you can find inside yourself.
It is there, and spirituality is the art of coming back home to yourself, connecting to your own truth and finding power in that finding power, calmness, and confidence by being connected to your inner power, your inner home. By being connected to this place inside you, anything could be going on around you, and you could be fine.
One of the most important tasks of our life is to connect to our innermost selves, our truest self.
It is there. But sometimes we forget it's there because maybe we're really busy working all the time or being all the roles that people need us to be–to the point where we sometimes even forget who we are in the first place.
And it isn't until we step back and see that those things don't actually define us on the inside, that maybe the world has those identities for us, but that doesn't have to be our true identity. And in knowing this and being connected to your truth and your innermost being, you will feel a sense of peace, confidence and calmness no matter what is going on around you.
There are many important steps to making contact with your innermost self, but today, I want to focus on one: how you can cultivate and create a space within yourself that actually helps you nurture that connection.
It sets the foundation for you to have a deeper relationship with yourself, and it starts with realizing that there's so much noise in our daily lives.
From your devices, social media, all the voices you see on there, from your parents or friends, from all the shoulds or expectations you might place on yourself, from what you may sense implicitly from society, or negative, anxious or depressive thoughts–all of that creates noise in our minds, and it's like a thick sludge.
The first practice is noticing the noise in your mind and realizing that that's not you, it's noise, it's thoughts, it's judgments, it's opinions, it's conditioning, it's all just noise, but that's not you, and this practice is called mindfulness.
The second practice is to recognize that your inner world is a temple, and you've got to protect it.
You've got to be careful of what you let into your inner space, because whatever you focus on in your life grows within that temple. And so many of us treat our inner sanctuary like it's a garbage can. We don't really pay attention to what we're paying attention to and allowing into our inner space.
If we're busy looking around at what other people are doing, then we're not able to focus on our own and that's one of the most important tasks we have in life, is to focus on our own journey and to self actualize.
If you tend towards comparisons, judgment, anxiety, fear, depression, try paying attention to what triggers those things within you, what brings it up within you, and try to reduce the influences in your life that feed it.
Be intentional about what you let in–be a curator of your inner sanctuary, your inner temple.
Imagine your inner world as a garden. You get to design it. Maybe some roses here… some willowy trees there…some shade, some quiet. What kind of experience do you want to have in your own inner space?
If you want more love, more joy—then plant that. Set that intention. Just like setting a sail in a direction, your intention begins to steer your inner world. Because whatever you pay attention to is what grows. So if you focus on love, if you notice it, honor it, nurture it—it will grow. And soon, you’ll begin to experience more of it. Not just in your outer world, but within your own state of consciousness.
And finally, you must learn to cultivate more stillness in your life.
Stillness is becoming rare in our modern lives—but it’s essential to cultivating inner peace. It’s in stillness that you’re able to feel yourself. To be with yourself. To hear yourself. And that… is holy. Not in a religious way—but holy as in sacred. Set apart. Precious. To feel your own presence is regenerative. It completes a kind of circuit within you.
A Practice for the Week: Pay attention to what you’re letting into your inner space.
How does it make you feel? Do you feel inspired or drained? Uplifted or anxious?
Be mindful of the things you can control: Your media, your news, your social media, your screen time. Curate your inner space like the sacred garden it is.
