Do you possess the following things?
Your road through life is long and paved with uncertainty – it is, therefore, vital that you try to pack as many of the following items in your metaphorical suitcase as possible.
Each of them will come in handy from time to time as your journey progresses; they will help you transition into someone who more regularly acts as the best they can be.
You may find that you are missing some items to begin with, but these can be acquired along the way. Others may start small, but grow over time, and some will require ongoing effort to hold onto.
So without further ado, let’s begin our list…
1. Self-love, respect and acceptance.
You are a tiny miracle in a vast, expansive cosmos. You are beautiful, you are talented, and you are capable of great things.
I know this about you without ever having seen, met or spoken to you. But do you know this of yourself?
Learning to truly love, respect, and accept yourself is not easy; it most definitely falls under the umbrella of things you have to nurture and fight for on a daily basis rather than something that is just acquired.
It’s first on the list, however, because it is so intricately woven throughout the rest of the items. According to researchers, it’s key to flourishing in life. By showing love, respect, and acceptance inwardly, you are better positioned to utilize and benefit from everything else.
2. Authenticity, honesty and integrity.
Once you are able to love yourself, you can begin to live an authentic life. Love can allow you to speak and act with honesty and integrity so that you may be the person you truly are instead of the one you want the world to see.
Too often we try to mask our authentic selves in order to maintain a front; we seek to hide our struggles and project a false appearance control. But research professor and renowned author, Dr. Brené Brown, advises against this in her book, “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.”
By doing so, we become unable to form deep and meaningful connections with other people and the world itself. We become pseudoselves – fictional characters acting out a life with little of what’s true and genuine on display.
What’s more, it takes a great deal of energy to be someone you are not, so packing authenticity in your spiritual suitcase relieves this burden and returns that energy to you for other uses.
3. Vulnerability.
Living your life with authenticity requires that you open up and express who you really are and what your heart feels. Without question, this puts you in a vulnerable position.
But you cannot run from this vulnerability if you want to be true to yourself. While you will sometimes experience hurt because of your openness, it will also enable you to experience joys beyond those you could ever hope to have while keeping your guard up.
4. Acceptance of risk.
Tying in closely to the concept of vulnerability is that of risk.
There is no getting away from the fact that life is uncertain – nobody can accurately predict what the future may hold. Shying away from this fact means shying away from risk, and when we do that, we put limits on what we might experience, achieve, or become.
I’m not suggesting that you ought to go out and make reckless decisions with your safety and wellbeing. What I am saying, however, is that you sometimes have to step into the unknown with the confidence that, whatever happens, you will come out the other side ok. There is always a risk of short term pain and suffering, but there may also be long-term happiness and satisfaction.
5. Forgiveness.
When you experience emotional hurt or pain, it is usually because you have suffered a perceived wrongdoing. Often the responsibility for this will lie with another person or persons.
At this point, you have two choices: you can either choose to blame them or forgive them. By apportioning blame to them, you tend to only heap further misery onto yourself – after all, you may feel angry and aggrieved, but you cannot force this feeling onto them. In fact, they might not even realize the hurt that has been caused.
The more sensible approach is to practice forgiveness. Such an act is more for you than it is for them – it allows you to accept what has happened and move on from it. Research has shown that forgiveness improves mental well-being. Without forgiveness, you will never be truly free of the hurt that was caused.
6. The ability to cut people out.
Forgiving someone is the first step to overcoming the hurt they have caused you, but if they continue to do so over and over again, you need to be able to let them go.
You need to cut the chords that bind the two of you together and, thus, prevent them from ever hurting you again.
Such chords are typically both physical and emotional and the process may not be quick or easy, but knowing when to let go of certain people in your life is crucial if you are to enjoy long-term contentment.
It should come as no surprise to you that it may also be necessary to cut certain items, objects, or belongings out of your life to grow spiritually.
7. Responsibility.
Your journey will inevitably see you interact with countless other people, but it is still yours to make and yours alone.
You must be willing to take responsibility for the path you take, whatever may come of it. In some way, shape, or form, you will have a degree of influence over the outcomes of many of the events in your adult life – to think otherwise is to blame others, and I have already discussed the futility of such an approach.
While it is true that some things will be completely out of your control, even then you are responsible for the way you react to them.
Taking responsibility for your actions and the subsequent consequences is a sign of mental and spiritual maturity.
8. Gratitude.
In life, we all experience a mixture of the good, the bad, and the ugly, but our focus is too often at the negative end of the spectrum.
Being able to express gratitude when good things happen is a vitally important trait of more spiritually conscious people, and it’s benefits have been well documented in research. Instead of taking things for granted, it is wise to actively thank the universe (or God if you wish) for the positive things in your life – and there is always something positive to be thankful for!
Even when you’ve had an awful day, you should still be able to come up with numerous things to be grateful for. Losing your job can be hard to deal with, for instance, but maybe you have good health and a loving family to come home to.
You don’t have to totally ignore the bad things that happen, but don’t ever lose sight of all the good that you are blessed with.
9. Acceptance of others.
As you begin to evolve as a person, you may look at other people and wish the same for them. What this quite often results in, however, is a desire to convert or cure others, but this actually hinders your own growth.
While you may be trying to help them from the goodness of your heart, you will have to accept that not everyone is in the same boat as you. Some people just aren’t mentally ready to make major changes in their lives and others don’t even want to.
Remember: you are only in control of your own life and destiny. You can certainly talk about the journey you find yourself on, and this may naturally make others more curious, but don’t tell them that they are wrong to be living the way they are – after all, you were once living that way too.
Instead, be aware of the many differences we all have from one another and respect them. You have to accept people as they are and not form a mindset of superiority – after all, this wouldn’t be a very ‘higher self’ response would it?
10. Unknowing.
Something that ties in quite nicely with my previous points about accepting others is the concept of unknowing. In short, we essentially know very little for sure and, instead, merely assert our opinions on things based upon our current level of understanding.
Instead of living in fear of the unknown, you need to embrace it and accept that there are some things that you simply will never know for sure. When you do this, you will start to feel your anxieties diminish. This is one of my favorite takeaways from the best-selling work of psychologist and world famous author Dr. Susan Jeffers.
Furthermore, the admission of unknowing will put you in a better position to interact with people whose views differ from yours. You will no longer see them as a threat and you will be more able to accept them as they are without the desire to change them.
11. Trust.
As a child, you have very little choice but to put complete trust and faith in someone else to look after you. Yet, as we grow older, the degree to which we trust other people drops.
As you walk along your path in life, you will encounter many people and many situations in which the instinctual reaction is one of mistrust. If you’re not in touch with the best part of you, you will see them as a threat; you will be on guard against any potential attacks – physical or emotional.
And yet, through trust, you can be relieved of a great deal of fear and anxiety and allow yourself to have faith in the other. To do this you need to be able to let go of your preconceptions of people and situations that prevent you from acting on trust.
When you feel more able to trust, you feel less threatened, and you begin to show your true self to the world. When trust is lacking, you are more inclined to hide the vulnerable parts of you away so as not to exhibit weakness. But, as mentioned, vulnerability is often a pre-cursor to great joy and a richer, deeper experience of life.
12. The ability to say no.
The demands of modern life are great – you can literally fill every single second of your waking day with activity should you so wish.
And yet, just because the possibility is there, you won’t always want to take it up.
At some stage on your journey, you may encounter the feeling that you ought to go out and live every moment as if it was your last. This can lead to an overwhelming inability to say no to people.
You may think that the experiences you share with others are what life is all about – and there is some truth to this – but spiritual growth has just as much to do with the experience you have inwardly, with yourself, and as yourself. If saying yes to something means you are unable to be your true self, it will, in fact, hinder your growth.
So, at some point in time, you have to know when enough is enough. Turning down an invite needn’t be a rejection of that person and, similarly, saying no to an opportunity that comes your way doesn’t always mean you’ve missed out.
13. The ability to say yes.
On the flip side, you have to know when to say yes if an opportunity that feels “right” comes knocking.
That trust I spoke about earlier is important here; not only trust in other people, but trust in yourself, to believe that you are capable of getting through anything if you put your mind to it.
This includes trust that you can cope with any pain that may result. After all, taking an opportunity does not always mean it will turn out as you’d hoped.
14. Intuition.
While it is not always obvious when you ought to say yes or no, there is one guiding force that you can always turn to for help.
We all have intuition – it is something very personal that tends to express itself as a feeling on your insides. Once you have taken on all the relevant information about a situation, your intuition is probably your best guide as to whether or not something is right for you.
You see, while the logical part of your brain can try to weigh up the pros and cons, intuition is part of the much more powerful unconscious mind which has even more information at its fingertips with which to reach a decision.
