01: Finding the Tools That Feel Right for You
There Is No Single “Right” Way to Explore Your Spirituality
Spirituality isn’t something you have to do perfectly. There are countless practices, traditions, and tools you can explore, and what feels meaningful to one person may not resonate with you at all.
You might feel drawn to tarot, crystals, astrology, meditation, journaling, manifestation, ritual, or simply spending quiet time in nature. You do not have to choose one path or commit to every practice you explore.
Before choosing the tools, start with the reason you are exploring them. Are you looking for clarity? Connection? Self-understanding? Healing? Direction? Peace? Setting an intention gives you something to return to while you experiment with what genuinely feels useful and meaningful to you.
READ THIS ✦
How to Create a Sankalpa
Yoga International’s Kelly McGonigal explains the yogic practice of sankalpa, a heartfelt intention or resolve. The practice focuses on identifying what matters deeply to you and allowing that intention to guide the choices and practices you explore.
→ Read the Article
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Step 1: Decide What You’re Looking For
Finish this sentence: “Right now, I want my spiritual journey to help me...” Your answer might be understand myself better, trust myself, feel more connected, find peace, explore something bigger than myself, heal, or simply satisfy my curiosity.
Step 2: Choose Three Tools to Explore
Write down three practices or tools you are genuinely curious about. Do not choose them because you think you “should.” Choose what actually catches your attention.
Step 3: Create Your Intention
Turn what you wrote in Step 1 into one simple intention. For example: “I choose practices that help me understand myself more deeply.” “I am creating more peace and connection in my life.” or “I give myself permission to explore with curiosity.”
BEFORE MOVING ON ✦
Know why you are exploring spiritual tools and have three practices you are curious enough to learn more about. You are not choosing your forever practice yet. You are simply choosing where to begin.
02: Create Your Sacred Space
Your Environment Can Help You Slow Down and Tune In
A sacred space does not have to be a dedicated room, an elaborate altar, or something filled with expensive spiritual tools. It can simply be a small place where you intentionally step away from distractions and give yourself space to reflect, meditate, journal, pull cards, or practice whatever feels meaningful to you.
What matters most is how the space makes you feel. Lighting, sound, comfort, meaningful objects, nature, candles, crystals, music, or even complete simplicity can help signal that this is a place where you can slow down and reconnect with yourself.
READ THIS ✦
How You Can Create a Healing Environment at Home
The University of Minnesota’s Taking Charge of Your Wellbeing explores how your surroundings can influence stress and well-being. It offers practical ideas for creating a personal space using comfort, lighting, meaningful objects, nature, reduced clutter, and whatever helps you feel calm and supported.
→ Read the Article
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Step 1: Choose Your Space
Find one small area you can use regularly. It could be a corner of your bedroom, part of a desk, a chair by a window, a shelf, or even a small box of items you bring out when you want to practice.
Step 2: Choose What Belongs There
Add only a few things that help the space feel intentional to you. You might choose a journal, candle, tarot deck, crystal, plant, meaningful object, soft lighting, music, or nothing more than a comfortable place to sit.
Step 3: Use It Once
Spend at least 10 minutes in your space without multitasking. Journal, meditate, sit quietly, pull a card, set an intention, or simply notice how you feel there. Afterward, ask yourself what made the space feel supportive and what you would change.
BEFORE MOVING ON ✦
Have one place you can intentionally return to for your spiritual practices. It does not need to look “spiritual.” It only needs to feel like a space where you can slow down, focus, and connect with yourself.
03: Use Energy to Amplify
Everything Is Energy
In spiritual practice, you will often hear people talk about “energy.” Some use that word literally, while others use it to describe the mood, intention, symbolism, or feeling connected to a person, place, or object.
Crystals, candles, herbs, music, scents, symbols, and other tools can help make a practice feel more intentional by giving your attention something physical to connect with. You do not need to believe that an object has special powers for it to become meaningful. What matters is how you use it and what it represents to you.
LISTEN TO THIS ✦
COVID-19 and the Loss of Rituals, Formation of New Ones
In this episode of the American Psychological Association’s Speaking of Psychology podcast, Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton discusses research showing that rituals can focus our attention, make experiences feel more meaningful, and create a greater sense of connection and intention.
→ Listen to the Episode
DO THIS NOW ✦
Step 1: Choose One Tool
Choose one simple tool you already have or feel curious about. This might be a candle, crystal, piece of jewelry, herb, scent, song, symbol, tarot card, or meaningful object.
Step 2: Give It an Intention
Decide what you want that object to represent during your practice. A candle might represent clarity. A crystal might remind you to stay grounded. A particular song might signal that it is time to slow down and focus.
Step 3: Notice What Changes
Use the tool during a short meditation, journaling session, tarot reading, or quiet moment. Afterwards, ask yourself: Did it help me focus? Did the practice feel more meaningful? Did it change the way I felt or approached the experience?
BEFORE MOVING ON ✦
Choose at least one spiritual tool that helps you become more focused or intentional and understand why it feels meaningful to you. You do not need to believe everything you hear about a tool in order to explore what it adds to your own practice.
04: Connect Through Ritual
Ritual Turns Intention Into Action
A ritual is simply an intentional action you repeat with meaning behind it. It doesn’t have to be complicated, ceremonial, or performed perfectly. Something as simple as lighting a candle before journaling, pulling a tarot card each morning, setting an intention before meditation, or reflecting at the end of the day can become a ritual.
What separates a ritual from an ordinary habit is the meaning you give it. Rituals can help you slow down, focus your attention, mark important moments, and create a stronger connection with yourself and whatever spirituality means to you.
READ THIS ✦
How Everyday Rituals Can Add Meaning to Your Life
UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center explores research on why rituals can make ordinary experiences feel more meaningful, strengthen connection, and help us bring greater intention and emotion into everyday life.
→ Read the Article
DO THIS NOW ✦
Step 1: Choose One Intention
Decide what you want your ritual to support right now. It might be clarity, gratitude, grounding, self-trust, connection, reflection, or simply making more intentional time for yourself.
Step 2: Create a Simple Ritual
Choose two or three actions that represent that intention. For example, you might light a candle, take three slow breaths, write one journal prompt, pull one tarot card, hold a meaningful object, or sit quietly for a few minutes.
Step 3: Repeat It
Practice your ritual at least three times this week. Keep it simple enough that you will actually return to it. After each time, notice whether it helped you slow down, focus, or feel more connected to your intention.
BEFORE MOVING ON ✦
Have one simple ritual you can repeat intentionally and understand what it represents to you. The ritual does not need to look impressive. Its meaning comes from what you bring to it.
05: Trust and Surrender
Let Go and Let the Magic Flow
Spiritual practice is not only about setting intentions and taking action. Sometimes it is also about knowing when you have done what you can and allowing yourself to stop trying to control exactly how everything unfolds.
Surrender does not mean giving up or waiting for the universe to solve your problems. It means recognizing the difference between what you can influence and what you cannot. You can make a choice, set an intention, perform a ritual, or take the next step without needing to know exactly what will happen afterward.
Leaving some room for uncertainty can make your spiritual practice feel less like something you have to “get right” and more like a way to stay connected to yourself while life unfolds.
READ THIS ✦
10 Tips for Dealing With the Stress of Uncertainty
The American Psychological Association explains how accepting uncertainty can help you shift your attention away from trying to control everything and toward the choices and actions that are actually within your control.
→ Read the Article
DO THIS NOW ✦
Step 1: Separate What You Can Control
Think about one intention, question, or situation you have been focused on. Divide a page into two parts: “What I Can Do” and “What I Cannot Control.” Be specific about what belongs in each.
Step 2: Do Your Part
Choose one action from the side you can control. Send the message, make the decision, complete the ritual, write the intention, have the conversation, or take whatever next step is actually yours to take.
Step 3: Practice Letting the Rest Unfold
When you catch yourself trying to predict or control the outcome, return to this reminder: “I have done what is mine to do. I can allow the rest to unfold.”
BEFORE MOVING ON ✦
Be able to recognize the difference between taking intentional action and trying to control the outcome. Spiritual tools can help you focus your intention, but you do not have to know exactly what comes next for the practice to have meaning.