Spirituality is What is Important to You

My favorite definition of spirituality is: what is important to you. I like it because it demystifies spirituality. Spiritual is often depicted as cosmic, other worldly, and separate from our daily life. The "what is important" definition simply suggests that the things we value and live our lives for comprise our spirituality.

So if raising your children is the most important thing to you right now then that is your spiritual practice. The best spiritual teachers that I have come across have all suggested that it is not what you do, but how you do it that counts.
So why not reflect upon what is important to you at this

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stage of your life and then embrace it and make it your spiritual practice.

This takes away the separation we tend to create between what is spiritual and the other parts of our lives. Your spirituality should be integrated with and applied to all the aspects of your life. If you meditate, pray, or smudge with sage, why wouldn’t it be integrated with what is going on in your life?

This allows us to let go of segmenting our life. Often drinking a beer, having sex, playing a video game, working, or watching TV are deemed to not be spiritual (unless of course the sex is really good). And mediation, yoga, tai chi, prayer, and ceremony are considered spiritual. And we keep them separated. It is like we believe if we mix the "not spiritual" things with the spiritual that it will make the spiritual profane. And conversely, we often do not carry our spirituality into the rest of our lives.

But if our spiritual practice is not carrying though our lives, what good is it? Likewise, if it is not aligned with what we think is important, how honest and genuine can it really be?