THE SPIRIT LIFE LOOP

There Is No Separate Spiritual Work

I used to think I needed to be more disciplined about my spiritual practice.

More meditation, more intentional time set aside for the spiritual stuff where I go into my room, shut the door for an hour or so. During my SPIRIT time my family knows not to interrupt me. Then I leave my spiritual space filled with a minimum of peace so I could DO LIFE! Handle bills, kids, appointments, making dinner, my job; you know, LIFE!

And then this morning in meditation something stopped me. I had gotten to the point in my meditation where I couldn't tell my nose from my toes (I love that place!) When I heard, "There isn't spiritual work and then life work. It's all both. Always."

Not spiritual work on one side and living on the other. Not meditation as the sacred part and grocery shopping as the mundane interruption. All of it - every single bit of it - is both at the same time.

What That Actually Means

Going to your job is spiritual work. Not because you have to make it meaningful or find the lesson in every difficult coworker. But because you are a soul living a human life and that job is part of the human life you chose to be in. A job doesn't opt out of being spiritual just because it feels ordinary.

Parenting is spiritual work. The 3am wake up, the argument about homework, the moment you hold your tongue when you really don't want to - all of it. Not because parenting is sacred in some greeting card way but because how you show up in those moments is who you are as a soul in a body right now.

Sitting in meditation is living work. It isn't separate from your human experience - it's part of it. The breath you take in meditation is the same breath you take standing in line at the grocery store. The frustration you feel when your mind won't turn off during meditation is the same frustration you may feel when stuck in traffic and you're running late.

The fight with your partner is spiritual work. The healing that follows it is spiritual work. The Monday morning when nothing feels inspired and you show up anyway - spiritual work.

All of it.

Why We Split Them

I think we separate spiritual work from life work because it makes us feel like we're doing something. Like we're earning our awakening. Like if we meditate enough, journal enough, pull enough cards - we'll graduate into some version of ourselves that is finally, properly spiritual.

But that's not how it works. You don't become spiritual by doing spiritual things. You are already a soul or spirit inside a human body. You are already in the work. The spiritual and life work is just called Tuesday.

The discipline I was looking for wasn't about carving out more time for spirit. It was about recognizing that spirit is already in all of it. Already in the hard conversation with Jimmy (my husband). Already in the quiet moment with my plants. Already in the frustration and the grief and the ordinary Wednesday afternoon.

I don't have to go find it. I just have to start recognizing it's right here, right now! I go back over and over to the teaching of Eckhart Tolle, be IN THIS MOMENT. This is THE WORK!

The Part I Hadn't Seen Until This Morning

For a long time I understood that living life is spiritual work. That made sense to me. The hard conversations, the grief, the ordinary Tuesday - I am thankful that through the years I can often see the spiritual work in the ordinary.

What I hadn't fully seen was the other direction.

That my spiritual work is also just living. That meditation isn't elevated above washing dishes. That pulling cards isn't more sacred than making dinner. That my spiritual practice doesn't get a pedestal just because it feels intentional.

It's all the same loop. Spiritual feeds into life. Life feeds back into spiritual. Around and around, each one informing the other, each one inseparable from the other.

What I'm Learning

My meditation changes how I show up at work. How I show up at work changes what I bring to my meditation. My reading practice deepens how I see my relationships. My relationships deepen my reading practice. There is no starting point and no ending point. Just the loop, moving constantly, one flowing into the other.

And at the center of all of it - holding it together, making it visible - is consciousness. Spirit life loop.

Because here's the thing. I can be in the loop without seeing it, too often I am. I get caught UNconscious and start running my mouth and before I know it I WAKE UP and tell myself outloud where was I? What was I just saying? Or I'm driving in the car and all of a sudden I WAKE UP and realize, hey, I missed my exit or I'm almost home. How did I even drive here? I got lost in the unconsciousness of life.

Consciousness is what lets you see the connection. The moment you become aware - really aware - that your morning meditation is showing up in how you handled that difficult phone call, that the difficult phone call is showing up in what Spirit shows you in your next meditation - that awareness is the whole point.

That's not discipline. That's presence.

Not spiritual work separate from life. Not life separate from spiritual work. Just one continuous loop, fully seen, fully lived.

That's the balance.

That's all it ever was.