What is Spiritual Activism?
Defining Spiritual Activism and introducing ways to incorporate the practice into your life.
What is Spiritual Activism? I had never heard of this term until I recently read Do Better by Rachel Ricketts. After reading it, I was enlightened and super curious to learn more and find ways to incorporate the practice of Spiritual Activism into my life.
To quote Rachel Ricketts, “Spiritual Activism is the daily ongoing, active thoughts, behaviors that we undertake to dismantle all systems and forms of oppression rooted in our understanding of our interconnectedness.”
So, Spiritual Activism is a practice that brings together the inward-focused work of spirituality and the outwardly focused work of activism. It’s a reminder that you develop self-awareness and further your personal growth by doing the inner work, which helps us create activism that supports all. Activism that encourages us to act as interconnected beings and a be part of a global collective.
Keep reading on ways to incorporate Spiritual Activism in your life.
Becoming a Spiritual Activist
So how do we become a spiritual activist? A spiritual activist means honoring thyself and working to create a loving, sacred, and sustainable world through means that are also loving, sacred, and sustainable. A world where all forms of inequity and dehumanization have been overthrown and consciousness is transformed through empathy, love, and understanding. It also views the world as sacred and inspires you to genuinely connect and feels your sense of interconnectedness with the universe. It means living in a sustainable way to support all human activity and the planet. A sustainable manner that ensures the longevity and well-being of the earth for future generations to come.
The practice of Spiritual Activism is being engaged in the present moment and acting from a place of connection and understanding of your true highest ethical, moral, and spiritual principles. A spiritual activist practices empathy to build a community and transform consciousness with others. It’s a strong desire to change the world for the better by contributing to political and economic issues to help humans evolve.
Incorporating Spiritual Activism into your Life
DEVELOP SELF-AWARENESS
Who am I? A spiritual approach means that one is dedicated to personal transformation and developing self-awareness as an integral part of creating a better world. To build self-awareness means to develop the ability to know what you are doing as you do it. Then, to understand why you are doing it by clearly perceiving your personality. Your personality includes discovering your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Understanding this deep innate knowledge of yourself allows you to understand other people and your attitude and responses to them, and last, how they perceive you. As you develop self-awareness, you can make changes in the thoughts and interpretations you make in your mind. Changing the variations in your mind allows you to change your emotions. Our goal in developing self-awareness is to become more conscious of what’s driving our behavior. Our unconscious behavior is something we rarely assess with our conscious mind. By increasing our sensitivity to our emotions and instincts, we can tap into this part of our brain.
Steps to Develop Self-Awareness:
Personality Quizzes and Horoscopes (Via Institute of Character Test is my favorite)
Self-Reflection (Take time each evening to reflect on your behavior for the day)
Personal Values (What is most important to me?)
Personal Vision (Who is our future self, and what are your goals)?
Observe Others (How do I react and show up when surrounded by other people?)
CREATE AND ACT
To me, Spiritual Activism speaks from our desire to create. We create new conversations, conscious businesses and develop new ideas shaping our world. We are all connected as human beings, and it’s taking action from a place of compassion and empathy. Working with others that share our goals is way more impactful than going at it alone, and it supports the action of giving and helping. Marches and protests are fantastic examples of this. I encourage you to research your local community to see who makes a positive difference and ask how you can get involved.
BE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
Another result of spiritual development is the ability to just be. There is no need to do things for its sake. We begin to cherish the present moment and spend more time living in the moment-to-moment experience. Living moment-to-moment doesn’t mean we aren’t passionate and inactive; it’s just using your time wisely and focusing on the present. Living in the present moment allows you to become more active and engaged by focusing on the small tasks you can accomplish every day to evolve this planet.
CONSUME LESS AND FEEL MORE
It’s simple and basic but so accurate. We live in a materialistic society where we constantly consume and buy more to satisfy our inner needs. Think about what you are buying and instead start to think where that money could go instead. Do you need a $5 latte every morning? That $35 could go to a local charity every week with a cause that you support. Know what you believe in and take an active stance to support your beliefs. Passionate about the environment and sustainability? Live by example, buy a reusable water bottle, and get involved with recycling in your local community.
LISTEN
Everybody’s got an opinion, and everyone wants their opinion to be heard. I encourage you to slow down and genuinely listen more to people around you. Ask questions, especially along the lines of what they need, so you can best support them. Take the time to learn what a person believes in, the job they do, the country they are from, and anything else they want to share. By making it your business to interact with people who are not like you or from the same social circle, you can learn something new and broaden your worldwide scope.
I hope you have a deeper understanding of Spiritual Activism and are inspired to incorporate it into your daily life. By developing self-awareness and doing the inner work, we understand how we are involved and connected as a global collective. These tools can help create a healed, and free world for everyone.
