French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
In other words, spirituality is baked into our DNA.
Now, not everybody is interested in leading a spiritual life. For some people, the regular pleasures and struggles of the world around them are enough.
But for those who are drawn to the spiritual side of life, it’s a journey without end.
And as anyone who has embraced the spiritual side knows, just when you think you’ve learned all there is to know, you discover a whole new world of exploration and beauty.
But with patience and practice, you can make progress in uncovering your spirituality. And if you know what to look for, there are signs that you are becoming ever more spiritually aware.
Here are some signs that show you your spiritual side is blossoming.
1) You don’t worry about small things
The stresses and strains of daily life can get to us all.
As we rush around from work meetings to the grocery store to the gym to the kids’ soccer practice, it all seems so important and so real.
But as you expand your spiritual nature, it becomes impossible to play that game.
It’s not that ordinary life loses interest for you, or that the commitments you’ve made don’t matter. They do.
But instead of being caught up in worry about the future and about performing your various roles in life perfectly, you understand that they are just that. Roles that you have chosen to play as part of a great game.
Funnily enough, accepting this can often make it easier to perform those roles, since you no longer identify your Self with the results.
When that happens, you become immune to many things other people care about. You’re no longer interested in chasing status or trying to impress other people.
Instead, you are free to focus on what means something to you.
2) You don’t care what other people think
One of the best ways to know that you no longer care about small things is that you no longer care what other people think.
Humans are social animals, so wanting to be part of the group is part of our DNA. But the more you awaken to your spiritual nature, the less effect the opinions of others will have on you.
As spiritual master Osho says, whatever other people say, even if it seems to be about you, is really about themselves.
And as you become more and more spiritually aware, your ego shrinks as you identify yourself with the universe instead of your own tiny personality.
Being bothered by what other people say about you comes from your ego and its need to be admired and liked. As you become spiritually aware, you will quickly move past that.
3) You embrace the moment
Mindfulness is a practice that has ancient roots in religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. And modern science confirms that mindfulness can have major benefits for your psychological well-being and peace of mind.
To put it simply, being mindful means staying in the present moment. And virtually all spiritual people share this ability to focus on what is happening in the here and now and avoid pointless worry about the future or ruminating on the past.
As you become more spiritually aware, you will also become more aware of the present moment.
After all, it’s the only moment in which you can ever truly live.
4) You connect more deeply with others
Most spiritual traditions have an ethical dimension. But as you become more spiritually aware, you will learn that you don’t need a list of rules handed down by some deity to tell you how to behave.
Becoming spiritually aware is a process of shedding your own ego and recognizing your place in a big and beautiful universe.
And as your spiritual awareness increases, your ego shrinks, until you realize that there is really no division between you and the person next to you.
This can’t help but make you more empathetic.
Because once you realize that we are all fundamentally vehicles of the same existence, it’s impossible not to feel connected with everyone around you.
5) You feel grateful
Gratitude is one of the most important components of living a happy life. And no matter what our circumstances are, we all have things to be grateful for.
Becoming more spiritually aware means appreciating that.
It means understanding that, while your circumstances will never be perfect, there is so much you have been given that you should be thankful for.
Many people recommend a daily gratitude practice that involves writing down what you are grateful for.
Other religious traditions recommend praying to God and thanking them for what they have given you.
Whatever form your gratitude takes, it’s a major sign that you are becoming more aware.
6) You become kinder
Connecting with other people means being kinder to them.
Like I mentioned above, once you realize that you and everyone else are just different manifestations of the same miraculous existence, it’s impossible to be cruel and mean.
As you become more spiritually aware, you will really will understand on an intuitive level that everything you do to others, you do to yourself.
That’s why you’ll almost certainly become kinder as your awareness grows.
7) You don’t judge others or yourself
Nonjudgment is a key part of several religious traditions.
When they meditate, Buddhists detach from their passing emotions by observing them without judgment. Meanwhile, Christianity records Jesus saying, “judge not, lest ye be judged.”
In other words, don’t judge others unless you want to be judged harshly yourself.
The increase in empathy that comes from greater spiritual awareness makes it easy to understand where others are coming from, even if you don’t agree with their ideas or actions.
You start to understand that we are all fallible creatures trying our best, and that in another person’s circumstances, you might think and behave just as they do.
But the same applies to yourself.
Spiritual people don’t obsess over the mistakes they have made in the past because they know that they are just one part of an imperfect universe where everything is connected.
And for the same reason that they don’t get arrogant about their enlightenment, they don’t beat themselves up when they fall short of it, either.
8) You forgive the past
One of the clearest signs that you are becoming more spiritual is your relationship with your past.
We all have a different story that brought us to here, and some are more pleasant than others. Some people’s paths contain real trauma and horror. But just about all of us have parts of our past that were unpleasant, painful, or even damaging.
But as you develop your spirituality, the past will lose its power over you.
That doesn’t mean you agree with everything bad that happened to you.
But it does mean you learn to let it go. You learn that who you are in this moment is all that matters, and that even the people who hurt you in the past were just one aspect of the same existence you are, too.
9) You lose interest in belonging to a team
These days, everyone wants us to pick a side.
Politics has become a sport, with the goal of the game seeming to be to hurt the other side more than it is to make any real progress.
But it’s not just politics. Even the products you use are supposed to say something about you and display your membership in one group or another.
This is deeply ingrained in human nature. We are tribal creatures, after all.
But spiritual people aren’t interested in picking sides.
That’s because they understand that ultimately, no matter what our preferences, opinions, and beliefs, we’re all fundamentally the same.
10) You feel part of everything
Different spiritual traditions have different ways of expressing this fundamental belief. But until you experience it for yourself, it’s always going to sound a little bit far out.
Still, as you develop your spiritual awareness, you will become aware of your true nature as part of the integrated whole of the universe, rather than an isolated little ego that stands outside of it and judges it.
It’s the feeling you get when you look at the stars.
The feeling you get on the ocean at night.
The feeling you get in the depths of the forest where all you can hear is the wind in the trees, and you start to lose any sense of yourself as a being separate from everything around you.
You can’t force yourself to feel this way. But as you progress on your spiritual journey, rest assured that sooner or later, this feeling will find you somewhere.
And when it does, you will know, beyond any doubt, that you are on the right path.