Tag: Spirituality

The Importance of Body-Mind-Spirit Balance
Mind-Body-Spirit · spirit guides · spiritual awakening · Spiritual Mindset · Spirituality

The Importance of Body-Mind-Spirit Balance

Melissa Conkling1 Comment

Mind, Body, and Spirit. It’s a trinity you have likely heard before. The three parts of us that comprise our human experience. While it’s a very well-known phrase and seems relatively straight-forward, I believe it is an important concept to review before we go any further on this journey together. 

Body

The most straightforward part of the equation is our body. The physical vessel made of skin and bones through which our life as we know it takes place. It is also the physical representation our soul chose for this lifetime. 

Mind

Our mind is responsible for all of our “doing” in life. It is made up of two major parts – the conscious and the subconscious minds. The conscious mind is in control of our logic and analysis – all of our intentional thinking. This part of the mind makes up approximately 5-10% of our individual mind power. Our subconscious mind, on the other hand, is where our feelings and emotions live. It’s where our beliefs and imagination reside. It’s where our habits and fears originate. And it’s where our our intuition and psychic abilities arise. The subconscious makes up the other 90-95% of our personal mind power. Together, these parts of our mind create all of our internal dialogue, our actions and reactions in life, which ultimately determine what we do and what we achieve in our lives, both good and bad.

Spirit

Spirit is the eternal part of us that is interconnected to all things, including our guides and the spirit realm. It is by far the most difficult to explain, because this is the part of us that science is yet to define. This will remain the case, because regardless of how much we would all love to know what spirit really is, science uses the mind to define the physical, and spirit is simply something else. Something ineffable. Unfathomable. Many of us innately know that it’s there. But after years of analytical conditioning telling us that without proof, we cannot trust that anything exists, many others doubt it. Spirit is the part of us that requires faith. 

When embarking on a journey of spiritual growth and development of any kind, especially connecting directly with the spirit realm, it is important not to neglect the mind and the body. We are always connected to this spiritual side of us, but the only way we can perceive it is through the mind, and the only way we can put it into action is through our body. Even as I write right now, my spirit guide is speaking to me, but it is through my mind, by forming thoughts, and my fingers, by typing on my keyboard, that this sentence makes it onto the page. Mind, body, and spirit work in conjunction and because of this, balancing our time caring for all three is essential. It is how we foster a true mind-body-spirit connection.

Connecting with Spirit Guides and Your Individuality
intuition · spirit guides · spiritual awakening · Spiritual Mindset · Spirituality

Connecting with Spirit Guides and Your Individuality

Melissa Conkling1 Comment

Because all of us have different minds, different bodies, and different souls, our spiritual paths and how we connect to our guides will also be different. While I share my experiences, favorite techniques and exercises, and others I have tried but aren’t for me, I always encourage you to adapt and integrate any of this information and these practices as you feel called to. You can and should test out anything you feel called to and add it into your spiritual journey as you see fit. 

Spirituality is Individual

I believe the individuality of the spiritual journey is something that often holds people back from fully exploring and embracing this part of themselves. As humans, we are herd animals. We have survived as a  species by sticking together and by repeating what we have survived in the past. Many institutions, from organized religious to cultural societies to schools have used this aspect of humanity to instill in us the idea that we all must do the same practices, embrace similar beliefs,, and exhibit the same behaviors, and if we do, we will all have the same results in the end.  However, spirituality is different because our souls are all here for different reasons and we’ve all had different experiences over lifetimes. As such, we will experience our spiritual journey differently. Do we all need certain things to survive? Yes. Food, water, and shelter. But do we all need the same things to thrive? Absolutely not…and it would be a very boring world if we did!

To me, to fully embrace your spiritual connection and to discover and engage with your personal spirit guides and angels, you absolutely must embrace your authenticity and your unique human experience. You much learn to know, accept, and love who you are at soul level, which is the human you came here to this incarnation to be. To do that, you get to do what works for you. In fact, it is essential that you do.

For years, I tried to connect with my spirit guides by following various methods, practices, and meditations. I would follow the instructions to a T. Dedicating myself to mastering this gift. Yet I never seemed to get anywhere. Knowing that I am a highly intuitive person, I saw this inability to connect with my guides as a failure or as a special gift I simply didn’t have even though deep down I knew we all had the ability to do it. I was troubled by the question of why, when so many other spiritual things came to me so easily, could I not seem to communicate with my guides? It made me question myself and my abilities. It made me almost give up on it. And it made me doubt spirit guides even existed.

It wasn’t until I started to follow my own rules – in other words, there are no rules! – that I realized my guides had already been sending me messages for quite some time. When it first began, I realized one had been sending me signs for nearly a year. Now I know I’ve been receiving signs since I was a teenager. The problem was that the communication wasn’t coming through in the ways I had read about and learned. It wasn’t what I expected. It was new and different. And I had been limiting myself to an imitation of others’ experiences with their guides. This is why I urge you to follow your intuition, your inner voice, those seemingly insignificant callings. Each one will be leading you to the correct next step for you on your spiritual journey.

While connecting with your spirit guides may take some time and some patience, and it may also require some trial and error, I can assure you that you do have a whole team of guides waiting for you to receive their messages. You can connect with them any time you choose, and you don’t need to go through anyone else to do it. We all do, and we all can. So please, give yourself some grace. Give yourself some time. Be patient. And most of all, allow yourself to get creative in this endeavor!

Books on Spirituality · spiritual awakening · Spiritual Mindset · Spirituality

Spiritual Awakenings: Volume 1 is now available!

Melissa ConklingLeave a comment

It’s finally here!! My very first published writing in a book collaboration on Spiritual Awakenings.

Remembering The Truth of Your Soul
Spiritual Awakenings are the pivotal moments in our lives when we remember that we are so much more than our bodies; we are infinite and eternal beings. We have always, and will always, exist.
The stories in this book share the spiritual awakenings of the authors, illuminating the uniqueness, and the shared experiences, we have as we awaken to the truth of our existence. In it, you’ll find guidance and a sense of connection to all that there is.

An excerpt from my chapter:

“Nature was always where I felt most at home. When other kids spent their weekends at slumber parties or playing video games or doing whatever the “normal” kids did, my weekends and afternoons were quite often spent with my dad at the tree farm. While my dad would be planting or mowing or shearing trees, I’d be off in the woods playing. Most often in the grove of trees my sister and I named the enchanted forest, searching for the fairies. Determined to find the source of the mysterious sounds and magical spirits I could always sense in the woods.

There was an innately spiritual element to the tree farm, though I didn’t know it as “spiritual” at the time. Rather, I saw it as magical. There was a power there that many people, especially my dad, experienced often. It revealed itself in mystical, otherworldly ways. The overgrown tree my dad would no longer shear because he saw it glowing on some evenings, though lab tests showed nothing out of the ordinary about the tree. A mysterious and irresistible force drawing him to the massive oak tree that stood at the edge of my enchanted forest that made him nervous. Events like these just happened there.

And the magic can still be felt. Visiting the tree farm last year for the first time in decades, I realized as an adult how different the air is there. It’s as though the spiritual elements of nature live actively in this plot of land. This magic lived inside me as well, as a spiritual side that grew throughout my life just under the surface. It made me feel safe, as though the world itself was always looking out for me.

At some point in what I now estimate to be my middle school years, however, the sense of safety began to give way and fear took over. Not a noticeable, anxiety filled fear. Just a cloud that wasn’t there beforehand.”

by Melissa Conkling, featured in Spiritual Awakenings: Volume 1

Click here to purchase your copy!

Spirituality vs. Religion
spirit guides · Spiritual Mindset · Spirituality

Spirituality vs. Religion

Melissa Conkling1 Comment

So many people shy away from their innate spirituality for one big reason: Religion. They either believe spirituality is against their religion or they mistake them for the same thing. And it’s an easy mistake to make. Or maybe they had a bad experience with religion.

For thousands of years, religion has been a powerful force on this planet. In many ways, religion took over spirituality. It became the most accepted way to explain things that could not easily be understood. As Christianity spread, it even went so far as to incorporate practices and holidays from old, spirit-based religions to promote this new one.

To be clear, I don’t like to hate on religion. In fact, it fascinates me how similar so many of the world’s religions are to each other. Yet we tend to focus only on the differences. To me, religion is not separate from spirituality, but it’s not the same either. I consider religions to simply be different modalities through which people can access and make sense of their spiritual nature.

However, because of the politics and power struggles that make up the history of so many religions, the spiritual aspect as it pertains to an individual is often forgotten. “Spiritual” became an aspect of religion to strive for, rather than something we are born with. Spirit became something outside of ourselves, not part of who we are. We were told we could not connect to spirit without religious leaders or practices. And as with anything, when we are told something often enough and for long enough, we eventually come to believe it. 

Yet a part of us knows deep down that somehow and somewhere we are connected to the spiritual realm and that spirit lives within us. I got lucky in that department. Growing up Catholic, I attended CCD regularly. As I was nearing the date of my first Reconciliation, I recall having a huge sense of dread. We had to confess our sins to our priest for the first time. At nine years old, talking to adults was not something I loved to do…talking to anyone was not my thing. So the idea of having to sit one on one with Father Barnes and tell him about all the horrible things I had done so far in life absolutely terrified me. What should I even say? That I didn’t clean my room when my mom told me to? That I didn’t wash the dishes? The “sins” were unbearable!

As the fateful day approached, my dad sensed my dread and asked me if I was nervous. I will never forget his response when I confirmed his suspicion. He said, rather matter-of-factly, “it doesn’t matter. You can talk to God directly any time you want to. And you don’t need to go through a priest to do it. So just tell him about the fight you got in with your sister the other day.” And my nine year old mind was blown…and full of questions. If we can talk to God whenever we want to, why are they teaching us that we can’t? And more importantly, how do we do it?!

Thinking back on that moment, it is no surprise that I always felt more connected to spirit than a lot of people around me. Unlike them, I was told from early on that I was. I didn’t have to discover it after years of soul searching. It was simply something that I accepted. However, I did need to learn how to do it and to truly believe I had that power. 

Whether you consider yourself religious or not, and regardless of your past experience with religion, you are connected to spirit and you can communicate with God, the universe, whatever you choose to call it, and with your spirit guides as well. You just need to learn how to do it and how to believe in and trust the guidance you receive. 

To learn more about connecting with your guides, join me Tuesday, April 18th at 3:30 p.m. ET for a free Spirit Guides Masterclass. Click here to learn more and register.