Downshifter’s Guide to Spiritual Practice

“For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I’m grumpy or mad, I’ll realize that I’ve not been paying attention to my soul and I’ve not been following my best routine.”
Robert Fulghum

Is downshifting a spiritual act? Is deciding to live more in alignment with the needs of the planet, humanity and ourselves an act of defiance, a refusal to comply, to be “socially included” or is it maybe a shift towards a mode of living that supports both our personal spiritual growth and the raising of global consciousness?

I have met plenty of atheistic, sustainable living and sustainable business enthusiasts who tell me that they see many reasons to simplify our social and business culture, to consume less, to emphasise personal and planetary wellbeing more, without needing to subscribe to any kind of spiritual beliefs or moral code. So, clearly, some sense of or belief in our spiritual nature is not a prerequisite for living more simply. For those who view living and working sustainably very much as part of their spiritual path, though, some kind of regular spiritual practice is paramount.

Why is that?

It’s like preparing to run a marathon. For most of us running a marathon is not something that we can just get up in the morning and do! We first need to train, to prepare and attune ourselves so that the task in hand becomes possible. For us to learn to change our approach to living and working to one where the needs of the planet, humanity and ourselves is uppermost in our consciousness, we need to practice being in touch and then remain in touch with that part of ourselves that guides us from the heart rather than from the head. I’m not saying that we never need guidance from the head, rather that our heads do a very good job of influencing us anyway, and flooding our consciousness for much of the time. By learning how to maintain contact with our hearts, our Higher Selves, the Divine, God, whatever that is for us, we will be redressing the balance between head and heart.

In my experience, regular, preferably daily, spiritual practice is a way to achieve this. What is it that gets in the way of us committing our time and energy to regular spiritual practice? What can we do to work with these obstacles and remove them?

Common Obstacles

Practical

• Lack of a physical space.
• Lack of a time space.

A very effective way around these kinds of obstacles is to consider our options more openly. If we can’t find room at home to meditate or practice Yoga, T’ai Chi or QiGung, for example, perhaps we can explore what changes can be made in our home environment to accommodate some space. Perhaps it is easier to go out to a regular class some days and practice at home on others. Perhaps there’s another space away from home that we can use. Perhaps there are some changes we can make in how our home space is used in order to accommodate some room for our spiritual practice.

Personal health/physical

• Illness of some kind, either an acute episode or an ongoing physical or mental illness.
• Surgery
• Personal weaknesses – physical or psychological.
• Lack of knowledge

In an ideal world, we would establish a robust spiritual practice when we’re feeling well in order to carry us through any illness that might emerge later. In practice, this doesn’t always happen and we will need to be honest with ourselves about what we can handle when ill and balance that against the healing benefits of maintaining some form of practice. We will need to let anyone who is caring for us know that this is a priority for us and part of our care regime. Whatever our state of health, we may well benefit from working with a spiritual teacher.

Emotional

• Limiting beliefs (those that lead us to sabotage rather than support our efforts)
• Conditioning (unconscious patterns of behaviour, usually learnt in childhood, which may hinder our progress in adult life.)

Awareness is the key here – to watch our automatic reactions and unpack them to reveal our underlying needs and how we might meet them in a life-sustaining way. Coaching can help to raise awareness.

Social

• Family, friends, colleagues unsupportive.

We can choose to ignore unsupportive comments, or we can choose to talk gently with those who appear to be putting obstacles in our way. In my experience, most of us would rather keep quiet and seethe than have what we fear might be a “difficult conversation”. In practice, it’s usually easier in the longer term to have the discussion.

Spiritual

• Unsure of my path, lack of clarity.
• Conflict between what attracts me now and the religion I was raised in.

Ironically, it’s maintaining a spiritual practice that helps us to achieve awareness of, clarity with, and insight into, all of the above. We can ask ourselves how flexible or rigid we want to be and where our boundaries lie. We can also investigate areas where we feel we would like to extend our knowledge. Spiritual growth can be a dynamic balance between the experiential and the expansion of knowledge.

Conclusion.

Whilst not a prerequisite for living and working sustainably, maintaining a sound spiritual practice is something that many downshifters find supportive, inspiring and a great comfort. Whilst there can appear to be many obstacles to this approach in our modern, fast-paced way of life, it is possible to remove these. As with many areas of downshifting, effecting life changes that are important to us can lead us to question our assumptions and beliefs and thus to benefit from the process of growth that accompanies the change.