How to Spice Up Your Spiritual IQ

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Guest Post by Nigel Bell

Working in the Disability Services field, I would usually associate IQ with a person’s mental and functional ability to live their life as independently as possible. It wasn’t until I started using spiritual techniques such as chanting mantras, contemplating, and practicing mindfulness, that I could see a direct correlation between spiritual IQ and my ability to live in harmony and balance with the Infinite.

Daily practices like this certainly help me to live more graciously, but also to be awake to life’s synchronicities and guidance through waking dreams.

The telling signs of where my spiritual IQ is at in any given moment, is always made manifest through those daily experiences I face. Especially the ones that serve to ruffle my emotions or generally push my buttons. They, most of all, have the greatest impact upon my desire to raise my spiritual IQ and find answers to help me grow spiritually. 

For example, I recently went to a small local restaurant and ordered dinner after a busy week of work. When my meal arrived, it wasn’t exactly what I had ordered. On this day, I tried to accept what I was served without complaint. No sooner had I tasted it, I realized immediately, it lacked several basic ingredients because it tasted very bland. It lacked the authentic flavor the dish was renowned for.

This experience pushed an emotional button inside me. I perceived the incident as a lack of care for customers and nothing more. At least the side dish I ordered tasted nice, so I tried to let the matter go. However, when the hostess asked me if I enjoyed the meal, I had to be honest and recommended the cook taste the types of dishes he prepares before serving them to customers as this one didn’t taste very nice. I left feeling a little less gracious for the whole experience. 

Two days later on a Sunday evening after a busy day, I went to my local supermarket and ordered a precooked roast chicken. I prepared a meal with it. Usually chickens from this supermarket were top notch. But this one was the most tasteless I had ever received. It tasted very bland indeed. In fact I had never tasted a more bland roasted chicken than the one I brought home!

This time I laughed out loud as I remembered Friday’s incident. This time I could see ‘life’ was trying to tell me something important. Two experiences within two days had to be a wake-up call. 

My less than gracious reaction to the first experience opened a karmic door where I would get a repeat experience to allow me to neutralize the negative energy incurred by the first one. This second experience gave me a chance to be more gracious and detached than the first. But I had an inner knowing the experience overall was more than a coincidence and not just a simple karmic rebalancing taking place. 

If Divine Love is the guiding force behind all life, what was it telling me? Well, a week later, while facilitating a spiritual program, with my heart opened a little wider by Divine Love, I asked again: “What were you trying to tell me?” 

What came through was: “I am trying to tell you that you are eating too much salt in your meals. Pay attention to your blood pressure!” In that moment, the eagle had landed. The message was clear. It highlighted how important it is to keep raising my consciousness on a daily basis and give back positively to life in ways that open my heart to love. 

How often do I allow experiences such as these to irritate me instead of asking, “What is life attempting to show me?” In reality, life, out of great love and devotion to its creation, is trying to help and guide me into a greater, more loving and enduring expression of Itself. This situation ended up being a good way of showing me how important it is to keep raising my spiritual IQ. 

Nigel loves to keep a written record of how life reaches out through daily life to teach, guide, and protect him on his spiritual journey. Writing is a way for him to learn, share, and capture the love of the Great Spirit.