Spiritual Guidance 101: What Is It And What You Should Know

If you are considering a spiritual journey anytime soon, we suggest you get a companion! A spiritual guide helps you experience God’s presence in your life. Spiritual guidance is most helpful at times of loss, transition or disillusion. 

Trained spiritual guides are experienced in helping you with your current spiritual life. It is different from counseling, whose aim is to increase awareness of how God is already active in your life without you actively seeking Him. 

What Is Spiritual Guidance?

Spiritual guidance is a confidential meeting with an experienced guide who assists you in listening to God’s voice in your daily life. In spiritual guidance, you reflect on your life’s direction and grow by recognizing God’s presence. This is different from therapy or counseling at church. A spiritual guidance counselor does not provide answers to your problems but helps you listen to the truth of your life and the Spirit’s movement within you.

How Is Spiritual Guidance Beneficial To Treating Addiction?

A faith journey is believing in a higher form of power and connection to something far larger than yourself. Suppose you are someone in a drug addiction treatment. In that case,  spirituality becomes your lifeline, your foundation for restoring your mind, body, and soul from toxicity.

According to the National Institute of Health, the role of spirituality in addiction recovery socially supports and improves your quality of life. It has been shown that the role of spirituality and recovery programs has helped decrease recovering addicts’ stress and improve their overall well-being.

An addict needs guidance from Christian counselors to fully experience the benefits of faith in drug addiction treatment. These spiritual counselors are essential in encouraging addicts to use grace to transform their negative thoughts and actions into positive ones.

What Are The Types Of Spiritual Guidance?

You might be unaware of this, but spiritual guides are already in your life. While others come when you need them at a certain point, you can still request for one when you need it.

With your current spiritual guidance squad, you could include any of the following:

1. Archangels
2. Guardian angels
3. Spirit animals
4. Ascended masters
5. Departed loved ones
6. Helper angels

What Are The Elements Of Spiritual Guidance?

Do we really know what spirituality is? What does it involve? Have you ever felt the need to go on a healing journey for personal growth? Check out our list of elements of spiritual guidance:

1. Openmindedness
2. Trust
3. Higher intelligence
4. Practice
5. Perspective
6. Awe and appreciation
7. Hope

What Are The 5 Practices Of Spiritual Guidance

After knowing the elements of spiritual guidance, imagine how you can practice it. At Roots, we promote holistic care to heal from drug or alcohol addiction. To encourage your ongoing sobriety, we want to share five of our favourite types of spiritual practices.

1. Prayer

Prayer is a one-way conversation wherein you share your thoughts and feelings with the higher power you believe in.

When you wake up, you can pray for guidance throughout the day to help you remain sober. During the night, you can give thanks for another day that you are sober. There are well-known prayers of Alcoholics Anonymous that you can also recite if you want to. Prayers are usually used to express your gratitude or ask for strength.

How you choose to pray is entirely up to you.

2. Connecting With Nature

Other people prefer connecting with nature as their spiritual practice. For them, this helps in their recovery process. 

You can opt for a hike, a walk along a nature trail, lying on the ground with the sun shining on your face, or you can sit under a tree while reading a book. 

This could be anything you want to do to reconnect with nature or simply calm yourself down.

3. Yoga

As an ancient practice, yoga dates back more than 5,000 years. It involves intentional body poses and breathing exercises that allow you to meditate.

Since yoga connects your body, mind, and spirit, you can enjoy this practice. Do not be intimidated by it because anyone can practice yoga. After years of addiction, many sober individuals experience a restored connection to their authentic selves because of yoga.

4. Attending a Spiritual or Religious Service

As part of the recovery journey at Roots, you get a chance to develop or create a relationship with a higher being you can understand. With this in mind, this also means that you attend any form of worship service to elevate your spirituality.

Some people appreciate the structure of a religious service in a church, temple, mosque, synagogue, or any other religious sanctuary. Attending a spiritual or religious service is a great way to create or mend relationships with your loved ones and friends.

5. Meditation

If prayer is talking to God, then meditation is God speaking with you.

Meditation is our fifth type of spiritual practice that, like yoga, intimidates other people. If you have never tried it before, it can feel frightening. Imagine sitting quietly for a certain amount of time—on your own, with your thoughts! It can be scary. For some people, being alone with their thoughts is the last thing they want to do.

Try it for five minutes first if you’re intimidated but still interested. And then try it for ten minutes, and so on. Do this at least three times a week.

And with that being said, with all the information you have read about all things spiritual guidance. You can always give us a call when you need a holistic approach to your healing. Check out Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention because, with Roots Through Recovery, you will always choose your best choice.