Spirituality has arrived! Online meditation challenges fill the Internet, yoga studios are popping up in shopping malls and advertisers use words like “peaceful” and “bliss” in an effort to entice us to buy their products.

But within this influx of mystical influence are you truly creating a spiritual life?

As a teacher of Practical Spirituality (daily life becomes our practice, as we learn how to respond to all of life’s challenges from the frequency of love) I’ve learned that talking the talk is different from walking the walk. Surrounding ourselves with crystals, “feng-shuing” our homes and reading motivational quotes is just the beginning of a greater shift that we are being asked to make. We have the opportunity to live lives that are guided by our higher wisdom rather then by our thinking minds and emotions.

The Energy Fields Within Us

We are trained from birth to be mind and emotionally centered. We have been indoctrinated to believe that our brain and our thinking mind are all that we are. But rounding out the wonder that is us, are the energy fields within our structure; high and low frequencies that when activated, truly determine our experience every moment.

The concept of frequencies existing as a part of our operating system is new for most and that these unseen forces are actually the source of our experience, is a revelation for many. I have learned it‘s not change your thinking, change your life; it’s change your frequency, change your life.

If this concept is unfamiliar to you, think about what an EKG or an EEG is truly measuring. One is measuring the “frequency” in your heart and the other the “frequency” in your brain. Clearly energy exists within you that is measurable.

We already have the words that describe these frequencies—we just haven’t associated them with the fields that truly exist within us. Fear, worry, anxiety, anger, and jealousy are all low frequency energy. Love, wonder, kindness, compassion, understanding, tolerance, gratitude, and grace are all manifestations of high-frequency vibration.

As you travel through your day you’re constantly responding to each and every exchange and experience that occurs from either a high or low frequency vibration. Most of your responses are instantaneous and often unconscious. They’re directed from the energy field that’s most present in your system, and for most (even those of us that have done a lot of conscious spiritual re-training) it’s the low frequency of fear, experienced through thoughts and emotions that we default to.

On the surface this isn’t great news as each and every response we have creates the next moment of our experience. What’s so encouraging and exciting, is that we have the choice to change our default frequency and we can re-learn and choose to respond to each event from our highest frequency. We can bring our higher wisdom into our daily life whenever we desire and the more we respond to events from this elevated state, the closer we come to living our spiritual values. But this takes work, lots of it and that’s where living a spiritual life comes in.

Spiritual Life vs Spiritual Practice

Living a spiritual life (versus having a spiritual practice like meditation or yoga) refers to living the spiritual values that you hold dear 24/7. While each of us may focus on different spiritual values, most would agree that holding loving kindness, being compassionate, understanding and tolerant of others, are principles to be cherished.

It’s easy to experience these states when life is pleasing. The work is to be able to stay in these frequencies during a moment when you are feeling jealousy, anger, frustration, or judgment. You’ll need to develop your awareness, evoke tremendous effort and apply lots of discipline. Luckily for you, your life offers opportunities to practice every day!

How many times in yoga have you watched someone lay their mat really close to yours in the last few minutes before the class began and you felt your body tense up? Or the time at the silent meditation retreat where you couldn’t hold your center because someone had a constant cough and your silence was being “disturbed”?

Our lives off the mat and out of the meditation hall bring many opportunities for us to practice responding to all from our highest frequency of Love: the person that cut you off on the highway forcing you to quickly hit your breaks, the coworker who never cleans up after themselves, your teenager who stays holed up in their room until they need food, money or a ride somewhere.

While Spiritual practices are lovely and provide access to your holiness, don’t miss the moment-to-moment opportunity that your daily life provides.

A lecturer and author of two books, Selina Maitreya is committed to empowering her students through the teachings of Practical Spirituality, where students learn how to respond to their daily life from one of the many physical manifestations of love. Selina works with individuals and with groups, empowering them to awaken and re-connect to their higher wisdom through their daily actions and choices. Selina has been interviewed on numerous radio programs and blogs. Her latest writings can be accessed at www. creationsmagazine.com, on her website, and in the new book Lifesparks. To learn more about Selina and Practical Spirituality go to: selinamaitreya.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/ PracticalSpiritualityWithSelina/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/selinamaitreya.