Are you seeking the light? Are you striving toward higher consciousness? Do you want to improve your spiritual awareness and take bigger steps on your spiritual journey?

I have spent a lot of time with spiritual teachers and energy healers and this experience over the many years has allowed me to gather valuable insights about how to boost spiritual health.

It’s true, there is no immediate fix, no snap-your-fingers-solution for gaining access to higher planes of consciousness and connecting with Source.

It does take work and practice and patience. But if you’re as type A as I am, you’d like to speed up that work as much as possible!

Here are 8 things you can do that will improve your spiritual development, and move you toward your goals just a little bit faster.

1. Meditate.

There is a reason meditation has become so popular in recent years: it is the single best tool for your spiritual development. When you meditate, you reduce your stress, not just while you are meditating, but also afterward.

It is important to learn to meditate correctly from a trained professional so that you gain the spiritual benefits of meditation in addition to the stress-reduction benefits.

When done correctly, meditation works at a deep level of consciousness so you can move toward being in touch with your higher self and other planes of existence.

When you make the connection to higher beings through meditation, you can tap into the information you need to make decisions that are in line with your true life purpose.

This newfound clarity and alignment with your inner desires will change your life. Just start with 5 minutes and build up to twenty minutes, once or twice a day, morning and/or evening, and you will begin to restore your body, mind, and spirit to a state of harmony.

2. Express your emotions.

Emotions are messy, troublesome things, aren’t they? Our culture does not like to deal with difficult emotions out in the open. Maybe you were told as a child that “men don’t cry” or to “speak like a lady.”

So many children are discouraged from expressing their true feelings that by the time they are adults, repression has become the routine. Though it is unfortunately quite common, that does not make it any less damaging to your spirit.

Suppressing emotions can lead to all kinds of problems including weight gain or loss, drug or alcohol abuse, other addictions like shopping or gambling, or just plain unhappiness.

Emotions do not disappear even if you avoid them; you can’t escape your feelings. They get stuck in your body and in your energy field, causing distortions in your chakras that block proper energy flow, and can cause physical pain.

I find journaling is one of the best ways to get in touch with your true emotions and release them. Before you get in bed, or from bed before you fall asleep, write your feelings from the day, or whatever emotions come up.

Write what you really feel—no judgments, no censorship, no self-blame, just your honest emotions. This release of pent-up feelings and energies is a prerequisite for reaching higher levels of consciousness, and will free your energy field from the baggage negative emotions carry.

3. Clear your chakras.

Your chakras are focal points of energy on your body. When your energy field is healthy, your chakras spin gently in the correct direction, moving energy in and out between your personal energy field and the larger unified energy field that surrounds and interpenetrates everything in the universe.

When unexpressed emotions or traumas get stuck in your body, they create blockages in your chakras and your energy flow gets crippled.

Spiritual progress requires a clear energy field, so working on clearing your chakras is a necessary step on the path to spirituality.

You can spend more time in nature, begin to release deep emotional truths, or visit an energy healer to start clearing those blocks in your chakras.

4. Spend more time outside.

Once a day, if you can, go for a walk with your sleeves rolled up and get a little sun on your skin.

Kick off your shoes in a grassy area during your lunch break or in your yard in the morning and feel the grass between your toes, the dirt under the grass under the pads of your feet.

Stroll on a beach, swim in the cleansing ocean, go out and stargaze and soak in the moonlight, sit with your back against a tree, smell the roses.

Nature is healing. It lifts your mood, clears negativity from your energy field, and reconnects you to your true self.

5. Get enough sleep.

I know it sounds so simple, sleeping, but you’d be surprised how many people are sleep-deprived without realising it - including me for many years!

The human body was built to be in tune with the rhythm of the sun—sleeping when it’s down and waking when it rises, and as close to that schedule as you can keep will help your slumber.

Try to get to bed by ten pm and arise by eight pm. If your body responds better to a different schedule, by all means, go with that! Each body is different and learning to read your own bodily signals is imperative.

The quality of sleep matters as well. You want to get restful sleep, which can be encouraged by making sure your sleeping quarters are completely dark, avoiding caffeine or other stimulants for at least six hours before bedtime, and staying away from TV, phone, and other screens an hour before your head hits the pillow.

Try for seven to nine hours of sleep each night in a consistent sleep schedule. Lack of sleep can cause stress, irritability, decreased focus and concentration, and general lethargy or fuzzy-headedness.

With you off your game, you become a target for darkness, and also make poor decisions that can lead you off the path of light.

Your mind and body have to be in balance in order for your spirit to be in balance, and sleep is the most important way your mind and body rejuvenate.

6. Eat well and exercise.

Taking care of your body and mind is just as important to your spiritual journey. If one aspect of the mind, body, spirit triangle is out of shape, it throws the other sides off as well.

Getting enough sleep is only part of taking care of your physical self. You must also eat a well-balanced diet that limits sugar and other toxic foods, and get your body moving a few times a week, preferably outside.

Exercise and eating healthfully also give you more energy, help you sleep better, and improve concentration and mood, all of which support a healthy spirit.

7. Practice forgiveness.

One of the hardest hurdles on the path to higher consciousness is forgiveness. Betrayals and rejections, mistakes and neglect all cause emotions that run deep. Anger, resentment, heartbreak—these feelings are not solved with ice cream.

But they can begin to be healed with forgiveness. No matter what someone has done to hurt you, holding on to negative feelings only continues to harm you, not them.

Holding a grudge not only creates emotional pain, but also restricts your energy flow and creates blockages in your chakras, which can lead to physical ailments.

If you can forgive the person who wronged you, you can begin to untangle those webs of negative feelings so they can be released. This includes self-forgiveness.

Yes, it is good work to admit your mistakes and try to learn from them so you can make the better choice next time, but it is not healthy, or productive, to beat yourself up over every mistake for the rest of your life.

8. Cultivate love.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe. The more you open yourself up to loving others, the more love you will feel in return.

Cultivating and nurturing healthy relationships—with friends, children, spouses, partners - brings more love and light to your life which is only going to help your spiritual channels open.

Spend more time with people you love and bask in the joy those interactions bring you. When you are feeling loved, you feel closer to everyone.

Plus, love just makes you feel good and happy and satisfied and safe, all of which enhance your spiritual journey.

All of these behaviors will help boost your spiritual development, get you closer to meeting your higher self and experiencing higher planes, lift your consciousness, help align you with your soul’s purpose, and deepen your connection to YOU.

8 Ways to Improve your Spiritual Development