9 Steps For Using the Heart to Connect With Your Higher Self
Having a contemplative practice is one thing. Maintaining it over months and years is another. For many spiritual seekers, the challenge is not in starting a practice, but in sustaining it – in showing up day after day, especially when life gets busy, when the practice gets dry, or when we simply don’t feel like it.
Here are some approaches that can help you build and maintain a consistent spiritual practice.
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1. Start Small
Don’t try to maintain a two-hour daily practice from the beginning. Start with a commitment you can keep – even five minutes a day. Consistency matters much more than duration in the early stages of building a practice. As the practice becomes habitual, you can gradually extend the time.
2. Choose a Specific Time and Place
Habit research consistently shows that tying a new behavior to a specific time and place dramatically increases the likelihood of it sticking. Choose a time and place for your practice that is realistic and sustainable, and stick to it as much as possible. Morning practice tends to be easier to maintain, as it comes before the demands of the day accumulate.
3. Make It Non-Negotiable
The most effective spiritual practitioners treat their practice as non-negotiable – as important and non-skippable as brushing their teeth. Rather than deciding each day whether to practice, they simply practice. This removes the daily negotiation with the part of ourselves that always has a good reason not to practice.
4. Find Community
Practicing with others – whether in person or online – can be a powerful support for consistency. The shared commitment, mutual encouragement, and sense of accountability that come from practicing in community can help us show up even when we don’t feel like it.
5. Be Compassionate With Yourself
No matter how committed you are, there will be days when you miss your practice. Rather than responding with self-criticism or giving up entirely, treat these lapses with compassion. Simply begin again. The ability to begin again, without shame or self-judgment, is itself a spiritual practice.
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