In this world of chaos and confusion, our children could question the purpose of living a spiritual life. The world has much to offer, and it is enticing to the youth. However, a great chunk of the world's offerings can lead to darkness, despair, confusion and misery. As adults, the consequences of living "in the world" can be easier to see. Youth may not understand that.
When children come questioning life or spirituality, we can teach them the rewards of spirituality. They will be happier and healthier if they embody some traits of spiritual living.
Spirituality is a journey. As we travel the path to spirituality, we embody traits such as love and compassion, and we understand there is a greater purpose or greater reality than just what we know here. We seek that understanding. When we journey spiritually, we strive to understand ourselves and our true nature better.
Ways we can live a spiritual life include prayer, meditation, yoga, and practicing gratitude and forgiveness. It can be trying to be in tune with a higher power and discovering the gifts of life.
A spiritual life has the power to bring great rewards. The beauty of life and the rewards of spirituality include: peace, joy, light, and balance.
Peace
Because life can be hectic, we may find we feel "crazy" emotions: stress, depression, anxiety and confusion. Spirituality brings the opposite - peace.
Peace is a necessary element to making ends meet in life. That's not a financial "ends" but an emotional, energetic ends. If life is lived so the only things our body can feel are stress, depression, anxiety, and confusion, the body won't make it. The body will start shutting down to give itself necessary rest and recovery.
However, when we actively seek out opportunities to balance out the "crazy" that life brings, peace will come. Prayer, meditation and yoga are examples of activities that help us become one with ourselves or a higher power. When we are able to "ground" ourselves through spiritual activities, peace can enter our beings and create a time for decompression and rest.
Joy
Joy is a pure embodiment of feelings of contentment, happiness, light and peace. While it may be difficult to feel happiness during life harshest challenges, we can still feel joy.
Like peace, joy gives us a break from the crazy. When life constantly feels dark and looming, it's hard to live on. Without moments of pure joy, or feeling a type of light that dispels the gloom and just makes sense to the mind and emotions, it is all too easy to give up on life.
When we take little moments to see the works of a higher power, express gratitude, or recognize gifts and beauties of life, we will find joy. As joy is cultivated, it will bloom to a lightness that guides us through the darkness of trials.
Light
Light helps us carry on. Darkness leads to despair. If we allow it, life can be full of darkness. There is no doubt we face many trials: accidents, injuries, sickness, death, and more. It's all too easy to give up and say, "I'm done. This is hard. Why is this happening to me?" It's all too easy to let that line of thinking lead us to a dark place, and it's very easy to remain in that dark place.
Family members who have experienced that dark place have found the pain can run deeper and deeper, to the point of emotional numbness or loss of hope. Trying to understand our spiritual nature or the higher power can bring forth light. When we see life as a journey and our mistakes and trials as opportunities to learn from, we will successfully bring light into our spirits. That light is a glowing combination of peace and joy. It's stronger than each individually and a powerful combination of them together.
Balance
When we don't have spirituality grounding us, it can be difficult to find emotional balance. The world wants us to believe we have to look, talk and act a certain way. The world tells us we need to have a lot of money and material possessions. We should enjoy certain types of music, movies, and other types of entertainment. Living for the world can give us a high, but it will ultimately bring negative emotions and can damage our spirits.
If we live a life of spirituality, we bring balance into our emotions. When we feel bogged down with depression due to the act of living for the world, we can take a break and live for ourselves. The peace, joy, and light we find from spirituality can balance the negative feelings building up inside us.
Spirituality brings great rewards. As we teach our children to live on the path to spirituality, their lives will be brighter and full of hope through the peace, joy, light and balance that is found in the journey.
