Spiritual growth gets more and more attention every day, but why? Why do we want to grow spiritually?
In this post, I bring 12 practical, hands-on benefits of spiritual growth. But first, it is crucial we understand that the deepest reasons for us to work on spiritual growth can sound quite abstract.
You might have heard from some people that they want to liberate themselves: they want to be more authentic, and simply be themselves even more.
Others might seek enlightenment: they want to know the truth, to understand this reality and life, who they really are beyond skin and bones. A third group might want a stronger connection to the Divine, to Spirit, to energies, to their Higher Self.
Lastly, as is everything in life, there’s a group of people who want to grow spiritually simply because they want to. For them, it is a deep longing from their souls, and it doesn’t need to make sense: it doesn’t need to have a rational reason, for they know what they want.
I know that these reasons might sound strange and not make sense to you, and that is ok. What I bring next are 12 more tangible, concrete benefits of spiritual growth.
It is my strongest belief that spirituality is practical, and grounded in everyday life. We are here, now, and spirituality supports us to live more purposeful and fulfilling lives.
So let’s bring more practicality to the subject! Here are 12 benefits of spiritual growth:
#1 Less Drama
If you are experiencing much drama in your life, meaning everything easily triggers you, everything is a problem, and it seems like you live in a dramatic sitcom, then spiritual growth can help you greatly decrease the amount of drama in your life.
This is because much of the drama in our lives is caused by our thought patterns and emotional reactions to them.
Most of the time, we live on autopilot: something in the world happens and it triggers an automatic reaction in us that we can’t seem to control. It just happens: without realizing it, we are constantly reacting to things.
When we work on spiritual growth, we go within. We become less reactive because we learn that we are not our thoughts and emotions. We have thoughts and emotions, but they do not define us. And so, we start separating ourselves from these, leading us to be more proactive instead of reactive, gaining self-mastery over our faculties.
The result: less drama, and more control over our own lives. True, 100% control doesn’t exist, and neither is this the point.
As we experience less drama, less autopilot, and less lack of control, we also experience less anxiety, less stress, less frustration, and less anger, all of which take us to benefit #2.
#2 Less Suffering
Much of our suffering in life is due to conditioned responses we have to life and in spiritual growth we start dissolving these conditionings.
All these conditionings are filters: mental models, belief systems, and things we think we have to and should. What these do is distort our ability to see and accept things for what they truly are — and that, in itself, causes suffering.
We interpret life through a narrow perspective we have developed due to social conditioning, our upbringing, our own belief systems, our emotional wounds, and the way we have reacted to past events that end up becoming repetitive patterns and stories, which imprison us.
As we grow spiritually we start healing the repetitive patterns we have that cause us suffering. By releasing these distorted filters, we are letting go of the inner dialogue that was making us stuck — which takes us to benefit #3.
#3 Less Stuckness and Stagnation in Life
As we heal the reactions, the dramas, and the suffering that were blocking us from walking forward in our lives, we feel less confused and less afraid of not knowing.
Much of what is causing us to be confused is fear, shame, and other things that are causing that same drama and suffering in life.
As we heal these stagnant energies that are the filters we use to see life through, we get less stuck — we get to move and flow more.
Less stagnation is not only in the mind but also in the body: through it, we get more vitality!
We allow life to move more freely, and stop controlling things so much. This means we get more clarity and we flow more in life. Controlling less, living more. All of which takes us to benefit #4.
#4 Live Lighter
As we release from stuckness and stagnation, there are fewer things weighing us down — life is not that heavy anymore.
There’s space now for life to become more playful — and not so serious and heavy all the time.
This makes it easier for us to relax and enjoy, and release from the constant need of being busy or solving something. It becomes easier for us to be here now and enjoy life.
A good part of this comes from the work of clearing our minds, which takes us to benefit #5.
#5 Clear Our Minds
When working with spiritual growth we work quite a bit to bring about a more friendly mind. This is a mind that is not constantly thinking, developing uninformed opinions, judging ourselves and others, and preventing us to relax and fall asleep. This mind creates much of our suffering.
A more peaceful and friendly mind is more supportive of a joyful and purposeful life.
A big reason why we want to clear our minds on this path is because we are living too much from our minds, and what we actually want is to live from the heart.
#6 Live from the Heart
Spiritual growth is the path of the heart. We come back to our hearts. For that, we listen to and trust our hearts. Acting on its deepest longings, we can live from the heart.
Oneness is in the heart.
Your essence lives in your heart. Your dreams, your visions, the deepest longings of the soul. Think about it: do you point to your head or to your chest when you say “me”? Intuitively, we know this.
Important here: there is nothing wrong with the mind itself. We just want to stop being prisoners of our minds. Here, we understand we can live from the heart and turn the mind into an amazing servant: one that works devotedly to the visions of the heart, so they can come true.
As we live from the heart we get to experience more love, joy, and connection in life.
We are here to live, so let’s live fully from the heart, shall we?
A result of living more from the heart is that we start dissolving our fears, shame, and self-judgment, which were holding our hearts in the first place.
#7 Courage
To live from the heart also brings a great deal of courage. It is the fears of the mind that stops us from staying in our hearts. The result of this is that we get to be more courageous to do what we truly want. Mainly, we become stronger in ourselves.
This means we get to be more ourselves, to act on what we love and want.
You see, how little by little we are liberating ourselves, how we are becoming more and more authentic as we grow spiritually?
#8 Loving Connection
Connection comes to us in this path in so many different layers.
First, there is self-connection: what we truly want, what we feel at the deepest level, what matters to us, our purpose, and who we are.
We can connect with friends, family, colleagues, and pretty much everyone around us. The more we heal our own wounds that were causing us suffering, the more compassionate and understanding we become, which highly improves our ability to connect with others and forge deep and authentic relationships.
Connection can go much further: connection with nature, with the elements, with life itself. Connection with the divine, to energies, to Spirit.
The more connected we are, the more we experience oneness, and belong as a part of the whole — which means we feel less alone and separate, less misunderstood.
Connection brings belonging and much wellbeing.
Our ability to establish better relationships is impacted by our ability to nurture our relationship with ourselves: as we become more self-accepting, we can also accept others more. We become more loving as we love ourselves more.
Self-love is a crucial piece of this puzzle: it brings self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-worth, self-compassion, and self-nurturing. Because we love ourselves, we want to thrive — and so, we start making better choices, and stop shutting ourselves down, which takes us to benefit #9.
#9 Empowerment
No longer a victim of life, but a creator of life
No longer an actor, but a director of our own lives
That’s right: empowerment as a result of self-love, for we love ourselves so much that how could we diminish ourselves and shut ourselves down?
In this path, we understand our power over our lives and our choices — and also our responsibilities. With less stuckness and more clarity, we can better stand for what we want.
We touched upon less drama, clearing our minds, releasing from suffering, and empowerment, all of these things bring us to Benefit #10.
#10 Self-Mastery
This means more strength in your willingness, to do what you want and act in alignment with your deepest longings.
A huge part of spiritual growth is releasing from the ego: that part of us that is constantly telling us that we cannot do this or that, that we are not good enough. It is also the ego that tells us, in a sneaky and convincing way, that is ok to always cut ourselves slack and take it easy instead of actually changing what is not working in our lives (or simply working on that big vision of ours).
Oh yes: the eternal “going with the flow” that is nothing but a camouflage of our lack of devotion to ourselves (resulting in stuckness) is the ego. What it does is prevent us from giving our 100% to what we truly long for. The ego makes us struggle with ourselves, for it doesn’t allow us to surrender to our souls.
Remember what I wrote in Benefit #1 Less Drama? Stop reacting to your thoughts and emotions: that’s a huge part of it. You have emotions — but you are not your emotions. As long as we can’t differentiate between these, we don’t really know who we are, and, as a result, we act on ego.
We talk so much about ego in spirituality, yet many don’t see how big and sneaky this thing is. By dissolving the negative ego, we gain more mastery over our lives: over our habits, our routines, and our power. There’s a surge of willingness, inner power, and strength, that comes with that.
Devoting yourself to what truly matters in the core of your being brings more fulfillment.
#11 Live a More Magickal Life
As we stop controlling everything so much, being so easy triggered and scared, we become lighter — and so, we open ourselves to the magick of life.
As we grow spiritually, we understand our power to create our lives — and, we also understand that there is a much greater consciousness supporting us that we can co-create with.
We handle better the fact that we can’t and shouldn’t control everything. We enjoy the surprising and unexpected moments, and reconnect to the miracle of life.
We become more open to life, more open to loving life, more open to living life in all its endless possibilities and potential.
#12 More Joy
This is the biggest benefit of all, what all this work leads to!
Ultimately, all the benefits on this list take us closer to joy.
Joy is our natural state. We do all this work just to come back to it, to sustain that state of joy — that joy that comes from within, that doesn’t depend on anything to exist but ourselves.
When working with something as vast as spiritual growth, it can be difficult to grasp what it entails.
It is my core belief that spirituality is practical, and grounded in everyday life. It is about living better, more joyfully and authentically, here now.
At the same time, all these 12 benefits are connected to the grander and philosophical motives that I brought in at the beginning of the article. All these benefits are connected. They are but different perspectives of the same thing — as if 12 people were looking at the same event from different angles.
Grasping the abstract and its practical applications is highly contributing to our growth, for it allows us to connect the dots and put the pieces of the puzzle of life together.
We all have our reasons why we want to go on this journey of spiritual growth — depending on what we are struggling with in our lives and what we want. As we walk on this path our reasons might change because we start grasping more and more possibilities.
If you want to go on this path but don’t know why, that’s fine! A pinch of curiosity and yearning is all that you need to put your will in motion.
To learn more about what spiritual growth is, get my free guide “What Is Spiritual Growth?”
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL GROWTH?
Explore the meaning of spiritual growth In practical terms, and its connection to soul fulfillment.
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