Developing Spiritual Wellness

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To develop spiritual wellness, it is important to take time out to think about what gives meaning and purpose to your life and what actions you can take to support the spiritual dimension of your life.

Look Inward

This week, spend some quiet time alone with your thoughts and feelings. Slow the pace of your day, remove your watch, turn your phone or pager off, and focus on your immediate experience. Try one of the following activities or develop another that is meaningful to you and that contributes to your sense of spiritual well-being.

Spend time in nature: Experience continuity with the natural world by spending solitary time in a natural setting. Watch the sky (day or night), a sunrise, or a sunset; listen to waves on a shore or wind in the trees; feel the breeze on your face or raindrops on your skin; smell the grass, brush, trees, or flowers. Open all your senses to the beauty of nature.
Experience art, architecture, or music: Spend time with a work of art or architecture or a piece of music. Choose one that will awaken your senses, engage your emotions, and challenge your understanding. Take a break and then repeat the experience to see how your responses change the second time.
Express your creativity: Set aside time for a favorite activity, one that allows you to express your creative side. Sing, draw, paint, play a musical instrument, sculpt, build, dance, cook, garden-choose an activity in which you will be so engaged that you will lose track of time. Strive for feelings of joy and exhilaration.
Engage in a personal spiritual practice: Pray, meditate, do yoga, chant. Choose a spiritual practice that is familiar to you or try one that is new. Tune out the outside world and turn your attention inward, focusing on the experience.

In the space below, describe the personal spiritual activity you tried and how it made you feel-both during the activity and after.

Reach Out

Spiritual wellness can be a bond among people and can promote values such as as altruism, forgiveness, and compassion. Try one of the following spiritual activities that involve reaching out to others.

Share writings that inspire you: Find two writings that inspire, guide, and comfort you-passages from sacred works, poems, quotations from literature, songs. Share them with someone else by reading them aloud and explaining what they mean to you.
Practice kindness: Spend a day practicing small acts of personal kindness for people you know as well as for strangers. Compliment a friend, send a card, let someone go ahead of you in line, pick up litter, do someone else's chores, help someone with packages, say please and thank you, smile.
Perform community service: Foster a sense of community by becoming a volunteer. Find a local nonprofit group and offer your time and talent. Mentor a youth, work at a food bank, support a literacy project, help build low-cost housing, visit seniors in a nursing home. You can also work on national or international issues by writing letters to your elected representatives and other officials.

In the space below, describe the spiritual activity you performed and how it made you feel-both during the activity and after. Include details about the writings you chose or the acts of kindness or community service you performed.

Insel/Roth, Core Concepts in Health, Ninth Edition, 2004 Update. © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Chapter 3
Insel/Roth, Core Concepts in Health, Brief Ninth Edition, 2004 Update. © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Chapter 3