Why You Should Be A Spiritual Hedonist
By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
There is an age-old question I tend to ask myself frequently.
“Is it my business, someone else’s business, or God’s business?”
Although I don’t believe in God in the traditional way, it still works for me. It reminds me to stay in my own business.
When I ask myself that question, it’s usually a semi-shocking waking up call that not very many things are actually my business. That majority of what I tend to habitually spin out on should be left to someone else or turned over to the Universe to manage more skillfully than I could. Those big-ticket items and major league worries are rarely on my list.
Most of us burn way too much energy on things we shouldn’t while we’re leaving the details of our lives hanging in the wind. We are physical beings, living in a physical world. Details are everything, and I’m talking about the real world, tangible physical details of our daily experience.
Many years ago in a previous life, I ended up on a fateful ferry ride that changed the way I thought about things in a very profound way. I was taking a ferry to an island to get on a sailboat I didn’t even know for sure was going to be there. I met a man who was a practicing Sufi and we spent 2 hours talking about religion and spirituality.
That man suggested that the Divine is everything, and everywhere. However, the one thing the Divine doesn’t have is an ability to experience the physical. Because the Divine is everywhere, as in non-local, it can’t have a body, with sensory perception. So, our job in the physical form is to experience this thing called life, on behalf of, as an extension of the Divine.
Simply put, if God can’t taste that food without me when I do taste and savor it’s an offering to the Divine. When I stop and smell the roses, it’s my offering to the Divine. When I ponder the majesty of the sunset, it’s my way of giving that experience to the Divine. He referred to this as spiritual hedonism. The sacred practice of offering our physical experience as a worthy gift to the creator.
Then he asked me the million dollar question, “Lisa, if the Divine was experiencing life through you, would it be worthy? Are you experiencing this life you have in every small detail as a sacred offering or are you asleep?” In that moment on a ferry to an island, with the wind in my hair and salt water spray in my face, I was wide awake, and I got it for the first time.
However, this morning when I walked into my office and plopped myself into my hammock with my laptop, I wasn’t. It’s easy to be lulled into a perpetual state of not being awake and feeling like life is happening and I’m just sort of showing up where there’s not a lot to savor or experience. Same old, same old, probably gets pretty dull for the Divine, because I know it does for me.
There’s another option though, and that is the choice to be an architect of my own moments. Being an architect of my moments is all about the details. It’s about lighting a candle or burning some incense. It’s about open the curtain and letting the light in. It’s about putting on some background music to set the mood for the day. Sometimes it’s about cleaning my car. Sometimes it’s about a vase of flowers. It might be about meditation, but for me the sacred is more likely to unfold in a walk with my kid.
Carving out a sacred life is not an overwhelming task, it’s a discipline. It requires a conscious attention and the intention to create things to appreciate rather than just showing up and letting things happen. It’s in the willingness to slow down. It’s a commitment to experience more instead of doing more.
So, when I ask myself that question, what’s really my business, it always comes back to one thing.
My job is to create moments, spaces, experiences that are worthy and sacred.
That is spiritual hedonism. I’m in charge of the small details. I’m in charge of this moment. That is all. This moment is all there ever is anyway. Alignment happens moment by moment. When I’m the architect of this moment, with an intention to savor this experience, I’m at peace because I know there are forces at work managing the other stuff doing a much better job with the “bigger” things than I could do anyway.
Lisa Hayes, The Love Whisperer, is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the newly released hit book, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan.
Confluence Daily is the one place where everything comes together. The one-stop for daily news for women.
