Spiritual Intelligence and Wellness-Matters Of the Heart: How to Create Inner Wellness
Wellness is an important aspect of life. Your level and degree of wellness determine your overall quality of life. What if you could control your overall quality of life and the level of wellness that you experience? What if I told you that you could? The next question would probably be how? What if I said it was connected to your spirituality? Spirituality, not religion. What’s the difference? Religion is about your believing in a higher power and living your life practices to reflect that. Spirituality is your understanding, awareness, and operation of your divine connection with the higher power that allows you to access and experience your higher self. What? You can live a greater, more expansive fulfilled life if you tap into who you were created to be and live your life from that place of wholeness and wellness. This is a place of creating wellness instead of achieving it. If you are looking for change or transformation in your life here is your opportunity. You have the power within you to create and attract the life and wellness that you so desire (Dyer, 1997, p.XI).
Why are we introducing this discussion based on matters of the heart? The heart matters because your understanding and navigation of the heart allow your life to flow or is blocked within the heart. We want to explain what the heart is and how to allow the energy and life within you to flow unhindered through you. The life you live externally was first created internally. This dialogue is about You. You recognize the power within and how to use it. You see the heart matters. All that matters in life is involved within your heart and your heart either opens or closes to allow or not allow your very force that influences the life you currently live-good, bad, or indifferent you choose.
Spirituality is an important aspect and component of life for many. Your spiritual intelligence and understanding greatly impact your overall wellness and quality of life. Your success is not dependent on what’s happening externally but internally. Spirituality includes both your spiritual intelligence and wellness.
Heart
Have you ever heard the phrase “matters of the heart”? Follow your heart? What is the heart and why is it important to us? To explain this concept, we must explore two other concepts that will provide insight, awareness, and clarity for us. Those two concepts are spiritual intelligence and spiritual wellness. Many have heard of the term emotional intelligence but may not be familiar with spiritual intelligence. Spiritual intelligence is not necessarily focused on religion but more on the aspect of your identity and not your religious affiliation. Spiritual wellness is spiritual fulfillment, purpose, having meaning, and a connection to your true identity. What is your heart? Your heart is the energy center within you which opens and closes controlling how you release or hold energy patterns that produce your wellness, life, and results (Singer, 2007, p.50).
Why does this matter and how does it affect your heart? It matters because knowing how this works will change how you navigate life. Your awareness of what makes your heart open and close will help you to choose to remain open instead of closing which keeps energy bottled inside of you which can lead to pain, suffering, guilt, shame, and sickness in all forms. Your heart is not referring to the physical organ but the inner place of your spiritual nature or the inner you. The inner being that you are. The real you! Your body houses this inner spiritual being. By understanding how this works you gain awareness of who you are and how the inside and outside are connected. Not only connected but the outer reflects the inner wellness or lack thereof.
Spiritual Intelligence
Spiritual intelligence is your awareness and ability to use your knowledge of how to access the inner workings of who you are spiritually. It is cultivating your ability and capacity to recognize your consciousness of your thoughts, feelings, and the world inside and outside of you (Singer, 2022, p.7)
What does your inner world look like? Are there parts within that are kept secret or hidden? Pockets of guilt or shame, some pain from the past, or maybe even some grievances towards others who have hurt you? All of this can pull threads within you and block your inner light. The healing work we do in unblocking this is how you can reach a place of peace & well-being within. This is where you can tap into your gifts & talents, your special function, your life purpose & what you are here to do. So often we feel there's more we can give & do for humanity, but we just don’t know what? These answers arrive as you walk the path of your Divinity & gain Spiritual Intelligence. Then life just begins to flow so effortlessly when your heart is open, your mind is clean & you are willing to receive it. This is what leads us into discussing spiritual wellness.
Spiritual Wellness
Spiritual wellness is fulfillment, purpose, identity, and awareness of your divine self, capabilities, and possibilities. How do we attain spiritual wellness? What blocks & resistance are there? What parts within do we need to shift? What fears are debilitating us? How do we end internal suffering? How do we wake up happy every day & live with excitement? This is the work, the practice to go from our ego mind & into our Divine Self over & over again. This is how you can heal your body, attain peace, live in joy, see through the eyes of love & rise above anything that may be pulling you down & causing you suffering. This is what is possible, this is what we all can attain, and your peace & well-being is your birthright. Spiritual wellness is raising your awareness and capacity to access will a higher level of life than you have envisioned (Dyer, 2012, p.25).
How is it your birthright? Being born into this world you are a three-part being. Some say you are or have a spirit, a soul, and a body. The spirit is your divine connection and higher self, the soul is your mind, will, emotions, mental faculties, and physical body. Returning home to your Divine Self or becoming aware of your spiritual nature is part of the journey. We go through the pain, challenges, obstacles, guilt & shame to finally at some point in our life say, “No more!” The pain, challenges, obstacles, guilt, and shame are within our souls but can manifest in sickness in our bodies. This is when we begin to awaken to who we are, which is the spiritual part of us. Without all the masks we have been wearing & everything we are not. As we begin to take these steps towards our Becoming, we are only removing & letting go of all that is not us. Programmed thoughts, behaviors, habits & conditioning that we have grown accustomed to. Thoughts & beliefs that are not ours that run on default in our minds & have been driving our decisions & our life. Finally, take the wheel & become the conscious observer to allow no more of what harms you & lots of what helps you on the path of your evolution. Finally, the self-love & acceptance you have been searching for & finally SEEING yourself with absolute love & compassion, maybe even for the first time. We spend our entire life searching for something & never filling it. What we are searching for is ourselves. This is the beautiful gift of saying “yes” to your spiritual wellness that also brings empowerment to create the life and level of wellness you desire.
Practices
How can people cultivate spiritual intelligence and wellness in daily practices strategically? I am glad that you asked. The first thing is to identify what spiritual intelligence and wellness look like in real life. Spiritual intelligence looks like you are doing things that allow you to access your spiritual or divine self. Activities include prayer, meditation, breathing techniques, journaling, and yes reading books about spiritual intelligence. Spiritual wellness looks like you are becoming more aware, curious, and nonjudgmental toward yourself. Giving yourself grace and noticing when you are dealing with pain, challenges, obstacles, guilt, and shame. Being the conscious observer of your thoughts & keeping them as clean as possible means removing yourself from those fear states & shifting yourself into the love states. This is the work we do, but it is beautiful work & you feel so much better within on the journey to your spiritual intelligence creating your spiritual wellness.
Conclusion
This dialogue around spiritual intelligence and wellness and how it impacts matters of the heart is very much needed. The goal of this blog is to briefly share the concepts and practical application of social intelligence and social wellness and how they can be used to create inner wellness which results in overall success. Many are dealing with emotional and physical pain and sickness because of matters of the heart & may not have the awareness that there is another way. A way forward that can assist in healing the body, ending the suffering, rising above the challenges that they may be facing, & seeing their world anew, different than before, almost as if a veil has been lowered. What once was chaos, pain, guilt, judgment, condemnation & suffering. Now it becomes love, happiness, well-being, peace, joy & gratitude. You walk your world differently because you have changed & your heart is open, and your mind is clean & as you change so does your experience & your perception.
The benefits of recognizing how the matters of the heart impact will change your current life and create the life you truly want to live because it’s your birthright. Knowing that all of this is available to you right here right now. All you have to do is make the choice. To choose yourself & return home to who you are & the beautiful journey shall begin. For additional information, you can reach out to Melanie Kennedy, melaniekemotionalwellness@gmail.com, or Dr. Robert L. Wilson Jr., Robert@WilsonGos.com.
References
Dyer, W. W. (1997). Manifest Your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Dyer, W.W. (2012). Wishes fulfilled Mastering The Art of Manifesting. New York, NY: Hay House, INC.
Singer, M.A. (2022). Living Untethered Beyond the Human Predicament. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, INC.
Singer, M.A. (2007). The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, INC.
