Nurturing Your Deepest Self

Wednesday Wisdom: Nurturing Your Deepest Self.

I was talking to a friend yesterday who just returned from Italy, where he visited Assisi, and many other places that were filled with art, history, and churches. Being a practicing Catholic, he loved the presence of the sacred tradition that was prevalent all around him. As we talked more about his experience, he began to realize how much he appreciated the way the external environment was nurturing him on an interior level.

How can our environment become a sacred door and nurture us in an interior way?

Have you ever noticed that when you find the right place for a plant it flourishes? For many years, we kept a shrub in a large pot on our deck, but we noticed it wasn’t growing very much. We decided to replant it in the ground, and in a short period of time, it grew profusely! Our interior life grows in the same–by being nurtured in the right environment.

Right now, I am finding that being in nature is nurturing my soul. Therefore, I am taking more time to be outside: walking in the park, being in my garden, or riding my bike and feeling the fresh air touch my cheeks.

Right now, I am finding that spending more time being quiet is nurturing my soul. Therefore, I am taking time to sit quietly in the morning in prayer and meditation; to reduce the time I spend on the phone; and, to visit a museum and look at art by myself.

Pause and reflect 

• How can your environment nurture your interior life?
• How can your daily actions nurture your soul and a greater sense of the sacred?