The Biggest Barrier to Spiritual Practices

Responses to the survey question "What are your current spiritual practices?"

​For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been collecting responses for a Spiritual Practices survey that ask you what your current spiritual practices are, what practices you’re interested in learning, what motivates you to have a spiritual practice, and what is the biggest barrier for you in your spiritual practices.

​(If you’d like to take the survey, click here.)
 
Do you want to know what the vast majority said was the biggest barrier to their spiritual practices?
 
Time.
 
Finding the time to do it. Making time for it. Designating time. Getting too busy. These are actual responses.
 
But is time really the biggest barrier to your spiritual practices?
 
I saw a quote on Facebook recently where someone posted, “If you have time for Facebook, you have time to meditate.”
 
It’s not like people don’t realize the benefits of spiritual practice. For the survey question “What motivates you to have a spiritual practice?”, here are some of the responses:
 

• Feel more peaceful and have a more fulfilling life
• Becoming more centered and living my truest self
• Feel more confident
• Being a whole, centered, joyful person
• It provides balance and grounds me from day to day.

 
So if time isn’t the real barrier, then what is? Is it priorities? Discipline? Commitment?
 
I have my own theory of what the real barrier is. If you’re someone who believes that spiritual practices enhance your life and yet you say that time is your biggest barrier, then I have a bit of tough love for you.

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Time isn’t your barrier. What stops you from committing to a regular practice is that you get to hide out and stay in your comfort zone.
 
Whenever I hear someone wants to change a habit but has difficulty doing so, it means that the person still has some investment in the old behaviors. The person is benefitting in some way in these old patterns.
 
I get it. Change isn’t always easy. It takes effort and focus to embrace new behaviors and ways of being.
 
But guess what? Not changing your behaviors also has its costs. What do you give up by staying in your comfort zone? Are you giving up more peace, more centeredness, more joy?
 
This isn’t a reprimand or a lecture. You get to choose how you live your life.
 
You are the architect of your life choices.
 
But if you know that spiritual practices help you to live a more fulfilling and meaningful life, why not make the choice to engage them more? Imagine what your life could feel like if you felt more grounded, more confident, and more at ease. Spiritual practices help with that.
 
With that, here’s your coaching assignment for the week:
 

• Contemplate these questions: What motivates you to have a spiritual practice? How is your life different when you engage in spiritual practices?
• Then ask yourself honestly: Do I want spiritual practices to have a place in my life?
• If the answer is yes, then pick one small thing to do consistently every day this week. You could meditate for 5 minutes at the start or end of the day. You can make it a practice to say thank you to one person every day. You can say a blessing before you eat dinner. The point here is consistency.

 
If you decide to engage in more regular spiritual practices, be gentle with yourself. Changing behaviors and building habits need space and loving energy. Be conscious of how your spiritual practices make you feel (physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually).
 
I’m a big advocate of having regular spiritual practices. What’s great is that spiritual practices include more than just meditation. There are so many spiritual practices you can choose. If you need help picking one, go to the survey and see the list of possibilities.
 
And here’s one last bit of insight I’d like to share with you about time and spiritual practices. There may come a time in your spiritual practice where you feel like you’ve transcended time. A 10-minute meditation might seem like a few seconds, or it might seem like 5 hours. Time itself becomes an illusion. That’s when you know you’ve broken barriers.
 
Peace and Abundant Blessings.
 
I’d love to hear your thoughts about spiritual practices. Do you have a practice? If so, what practices do you do and what motivates you to do them? If not, what stops you? Please leave a comment below.

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