"I love all this recent talk about depression and mental health. In my opinion however, I think we also need to start talking about depression and spiritual health. After all, it’s what saved and healed me."
~ Sal Crispo
Spiritual bankruptcy is a term I use often to describe my personal situation when I was severely depressed. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person or that you do not follow certain dogmatic religious practices such as going to church (even when I was going to church regularly, I was still spiritually bankrupt). It describes a state of poor spiritual health. I was spiritually bankrupt because I neglected all meaningful spiritual practices. It really is that simple and in Western society, quite common.
For me, I despised a lot of the religious dogma I was taught growing up. I felt it was confusing, contradicting and just downright insanity at times. As a result, I pushed it all away and became spiritually bankrupt. Why? I grouped spirituality with this religious dogma and didn’t realize that they are vastly different. You can be spiritually healthy and powerful and not follow any religion or dogmatic practices. Let’s look at some ways you can start improving your spiritual health.
One way to become more spiritual is by establishing a conscious relationship with God (Higher Self, Universe, Great Spirit, etc.). Remember, your body, mind and spirit are your performance team and any good team would do better with a coach. Who can be a better coach than the Universal Mind and Spirit which is infinitely wise and intelligent? You don’t have to have a coach of course, it’s entirely up to you. However, why would you not want to have a relationship with a Coach that can show you the way to living a glorious, abundant and heavenly life? In the next post, I will describe a way you can attain Conscious Unity with Great Spirit.
Maybe some of you reading this think God and this spiritual stuff is all make believe. If that’s the case, you can still be spiritual. You do not have to believe in anything special. There are several spiritual practices that you can adopt which are simple and not so esoteric. For example, in my book, ‘One Habit At A Time’, I describe a couple of spiritual habits which anyone can easily practice.
The first is by maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Simply take some time each day and go over everything and everyone in your life that you are grateful for. You don’t have to say thank you to the Universe if you don’t believe or feel comfortable, you just have to acknowledge all of your blessings and feel thankful for them. When someone does something nice for you, you can say thank you. How can you reciprocate or pay it forward? This leads me to the next habit – the habit of service.
The habit of service is basically living by the golden rule principle. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This fundamental principle echoes throughout most of the religions. It helps you become less self-centered and more empathetic. You start thinking before you act. How will my thoughts and actions affect others? How can I be more kind? How can I make this person’s day? What can I give instead of get? How can I be of value or service?
As you can see, even if you are atheist, you can still lead a spiritual life by adopting the habits above. By practicing these habits, you are spreading kindness, joy and love into this world. You will be a bright star in many peoples’ lives. Actually, I think acting spiritually is more important, healthier and powerful than simply believing in God but only acting selfishly. Therefore, you can have a healthy spiritual life regardless if you believe in esoteric stuff or not. If you are spiritually bankrupt, I really hope and pray that you start focusing on improving your spirit health. Trust me, it’s never too late.
Your V10 Health Coach,
Sal Crispo
P.S. If you are interested, I also make a coaching video for each of these posts on YouTube. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel so you do not miss out on any of the valuable content I share. Here is the link for this post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwrkvkbfJ6g