Day-by-Day Progress

[rva_jeremy]

I know feeling a lack of spiritual inertia has been something I have struggled with. I continue to, but I've reached some conclusions that may be useful.

It used to be something I felt a lot of anxiety about, like a metaphysical "Fear Of Missing Out". That has not left me altogether, but I did have a realization a few years ago that you can't fake it. I can let a perceived lack of progress weigh on me, thinking that this pressure will push me forward, but "pushing forward" without having your heart in it is a truly horrendous feeling, especially in something like this where the heart is everything, where honesty is the coin in the first place.

If we truly believe this is a universe infinite in time, space, and potential, then it's really just about having patience with ourselves, isn't it? It is all literally going to come around at one point or another. The ego simply has no control over any of it, period. Recognizing that, I try to focus on manifesting the choice in my daily life -- or just paying attention, mindfulness -- and let the higher self handle what the higher self is better at.

If there's one ironclad law I've noticed, it's the one the OP mentioned: epiphanies are not scheduled. So instead of focusing on progress, like planting a seed and then standing there waiting for it to grow, focus on tending the garden. Seeds grow, and it's good to plant them, but they grow in their own time. What one has control over are the intermediate conditions, the watering and what not. Patience is an elusive but simple virtue.

Introducing structure into your waking life is one way to better regularize. But again: you can't fake it. I used to have a morning meditation regime, but it became such a chore. It's not that meditation was bad or wrong, but my mindset certainly was. So for me I found it better to introduce small changes little by little into one's life, test them out, see how you feel, and in that manner achieve slow but steady "progress" that relies on building faith rather than specific pieces of spiritual feedback. That approach works for those of us who tend to be perfectionists, especially.

I remember reading old theosophy books back in the day and one phrase that stuck with me was "spiritual materialism". This is a way of describing an approach to the metaphysical that sees spiritual achievement as the result of specific phenomena one should experience, like out of body experiences or a vision or some concrete, mentally tangible experience that grabs you. It's really difficult because we always get pulled in by the flashiest aspects at first, and spirituality is no exception, at least for me. I started to realize that those kinds of extreme experiences only caused me anxiety -- anxiety that I was not perceiving them, or anxiety that I was and they are not necessarily the most pleasant. I've really been focusing on releasing expectations to have huge revelations, and instead focus on understanding myself in as thoroughgoing a manner as possible. If that makes it hard to think and talk about, well, that's not the point anyway.

Hope this helps; you're not alone in feeling the way you do.