This is Part Two in a series on Adaptive Spiritual Practice for Pagans and Witches: A Response to Challenging Times (Yet Again…). Read Part One here!
In my previous post, I discussed the need for us to adapt our spiritual practices to better address these challenging times. This involves changing your perspective, expanding your definition of spiritual, and letting go of what you don’t need. In this post, we will cover how to navigate changes in your practice, including examining your view of devotion and trying new things. Cultivating an adaptive spiritual practice needs to take place in the context of your life. This means that you have to leave space for the unexpected and acknowledge your need for rest.
Changing What Devotion Means to You
Times of great uncertainty don’t change your devotion to Deity, but the form your devotion takes may look different these days.
What we are able to give changed for all of us during the pandemic, and is changing again with the crazy state of the world. Balancing the various demands on our time is difficult during regular life, let alone in challenging times. Uncertainty is also a huge chronic mental stressor, and that depletes our energy and bandwidth to do things across all areas of our lives, including spirituality.
You may not have the same amount of time or energy to devote to your spiritual practice. And that is okay. In “normal” times, spiritual devotion may have included prayers in the morning, a meal blessing at lunch, and meditating every evening. These days, I am lucky if I can convince myself to get out of bed on time, nevermind all the other things.
I think the phrase “Work smarter, not harder” can definitely apply here. Part of this involves reimagining what devotion looks like in our current world. What aspects of devotion to the Divine are really important to you? Try to think of this in broader terms than just the actions you would normally perform.
For example, instead of “meditate for twenty minutes each day” – What do you get out of your meditation? Is that a time to calm your racing mind? A time to converse with Deity? Or to simply listen to the universe? It may be multiple things, but try to tease out exactly why you do what you do, and which of these are the most important to you when your time and energy may be limited.
For me, daily spiritual connection with Aphrodite is essential. Now, this can be accomplished in a myriad of ways. Meditation is one of them, but so is singing in the shower or dancing around my living room. It could also be a quick prayer while I am savoring the first bite of my meal, or admiring the beautiful pink colors of the sunset.
If I am able to look at devotion as a daily spiritual connection instead of being locked into twenty minutes of meditation every evening, my opportunities open up. I am more easily able to meet that need, no matter what life may throw at me on any particular day. Changing my relationship to devotion makes that possible.
Trying New Things
While you are honestly assessing your spiritual practice, keeping what works and letting go of what doesn’t, you will probably need to try out some new things along the way. You may have identified some needs that can’t be met through the current practices that you can reasonably keep during stressful times. You will have to be creative in figuring out how to meet those needs with the time and energy that you have.
Spirituality is a living and breathing art. One of the many wonderful things about being Pagans and Witches is that we aren’t required to follow dusty old scriptures. Our religion isn’t confined to a box labelled “church” or “prayers” or “meditation.” We get to choose how we relate to the Divine. Though our Gods may be old, that doesn’t mean that our ways have to be.
Your spirituality is unique to YOU. That means it is yours to create, celebrate, and reinvent. Your spirituality can grow with you. And it should. While these challenging and uncertain times may not necessarily feel like growth right now, it is. Building a stronger relationship with your spiritual practice during this trying time will not only serve you now, it will open up new possibilities once we are on the other side of this mess.
Expanding your definition of spiritual is key here. If what you are doing right now isn’t working for you (or isn’t working well), take a step back. It may be helpful to take a look at your practice at different time scales. What do you do (or would like to do) on a daily basis? Weekly? Monthly? Yearly?
Now what is actually possible for you to do each day? Each week? Each month? Some of your daily practices may need to move to every other day, or once a week. Or, you may still be able to keep a daily aspect of that particular practice, but using a modified version. My daily prayers may not be as elaborate as they were prior to the pandemic and the current craziness of the world, but they are still full of love and reverence. And that is what really matters.
Creating Space for Life
Shit happens. Whatever your path is, you should be able to turn to your spirituality for comfort in challenging times. Your spirituality should also have space for life to happen in it – the wonderful, the awful, the happy, the sad, and the simply inconvenient.
Allow space for you to feel your feelings. All of them. Allow space to process the difficult emotions we are all feeling right now. Rage at the government for hurting so many people. Fury at people who lack compassion for others. Helplessness when our elected officials won’t listen to us. Grief at loss. Frustration at rising prices for everything. Fear if you belong to a marginalized group that is increasingly becoming a target of hate and bigotry. Anxiety over not knowing what crazy thing will come next.
While we are at it, don’t play the comparison game. No one wins at comparative suffering. Just because you aren’t experiencing the worst version of the current circumstances right now doesn’t mean that your feelings aren’t valid. We are all under way more stress right now than we were at this time last year. It is important that we acknowledge that.
Leaving Time for Rest
If there is one word I would use to sum up these two posts, it would be “flexibility.” This type of spiritual flexibility requires introspection and really knowing yourself. Part of this is acknowledging, and really listening, to when you need rest.
As we discovered during the pandemic, rest isn’t as simple as it seems. Even when we weren’t leaving our homes during the various lockdowns, that didn’t mean we were actually relaxing and getting rest. Even the activities that we may have once thought as relaxing (such as taking a break from work and scrolling on your phone), have turned out to be more stressful than restful.
When I say rest, I don’t just mean sleep (though sleep is still super important). There is also active rest, like the zen state that begets shower thoughts or chilling out listening to an audiobook. Rest is imperative for our minds, bodies, and spirits to heal. We are experiencing skyrocketing levels of anxiety right now. We need to give ourselves the space to process that.
I encourage you to read the book Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski (or listen to the awesome audiobook, narrated by the authors) to learn more about the stress response cycle and how we can cope with these insanely stressful times using SCIENCE! According to the research cited in Burnout, we need to spend 42% of our time in rest, including both sleep and active rest. That may seem like a lot, but it’s necessary for us to keep on functioning.
That said, this isn’t something to beat yourself up over. That just adds more stress, which isn’t helpful for anyone.
My sleep schedule has been messed up since March of 2020. I’ve always been a bit of a night owl, but at one point prior to the pandemic, I did have something of what people would consider a normal sleep schedule. Something about the pandemic forcibly reset my circadian rhythm, and mornings have just been awful ever since. I spent YEARS trying to get myself back on track, beating myself up for “why can’t I just get myself to bed earlier??” Beating myself up didn’t accomplish anything. In the past few months, I’ve finally decided to just embrace my night owl nature. I have shifted my work and sleep schedule to better match what makes me feel the best, and it has been transformative. I no longer hate waking up.
How does this tie into spirituality? Rest is sacred. The act of taking care of yourself is spiritual. If you want to add a bit more to it, like prayers or meditation before bed, you can, but it is certainly not necessary. Giving yourself quiet time to rest helps to bring together your mind, body, and spirit. It helps you to heal. It replenishes your energy for all of the other things you do. Rest makes your spiritual practice possible.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We can only go forward.
Homo sapiens is an incredibly resilient species. We have survived so much throughout our history, and we can survive this. Things may feel impossibly hard (because they are), but we got through yesterday and we can get through today. And we will get through tomorrow, whatever comes.
By allowing our spiritual practice to grow with us and to change with our circumstances, we build a more resilient relationship with ourselves and the Divine. We create a practice that we can take comfort in, that supports us and nourishes us. We honor the Divine, and we honor ourselves.
This process doesn’t happen all at once. Have patience and practice self-compassion. Mistakes are a part of the experience. Learn from them, laugh about them, and move on. Have fun experimenting. Discover what cultivates joy and peace. And, whatever you do, do it with love, reverence, and at least a little bit of mirth.
Thank you for reading this series on Adapting Spiritual Practice for Pagans and Witches! If you are wondering where to start this journey or would like some guidance and support as you embark on this transformation, I invite you to schedule a one-on-one spiritual mentorship session with me.
Brightest blessings to you on your journey!
Priestess of Aphrodite 