Spiritual

Find your purpose

Every good pathfinder needs a balanced, working compass. Spiritual wellness is all about examining your values, beliefs, and principles, identifying your meaning and purpose in your life, and seeing how your internal compass works based on your decisions, reflections, and personal desires.

If you’re noticing any of the following, now might be the right time to begin improving your spiritual wellness:

  • More despondent and disengaged
  • Tendency to withdraw or self-isolate
  • Uncertainty or sudden abandonment of previously-held values
  • Unsure about your purpose, values, beliefs, and motivations
  • If you’re spiritual or religious... Questioning beliefs or sudden doubt in spiritual or religious beliefs

Things to consider

Mindfulness is a meditation practice in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Practicing mindfulness provides you with a moment in time to stop, bring attention to yourself, and ponder deeper questions that can help you better develop your internal compass. There are plenty of activities and routines – through IU and on your own – you can implement to build mindfulness into your everyday life.

  • CAPS offers several Mindfulness workshops to further educate on mindfulness, ways to practice it, and the benefits of building mindfulness into your standard routine.
  • WellTrack is a free app for IU students designed to help you get more in-tune with several dimensions of your personal wellness, including your spiritual wellness. It’s self-guided interface and suite of interactive virtual tools allows you to move at your own pace and define what matters to you. The Zen Room and the Thought Diary can be used to engage in meditation, reflection, and awareness of the things you’re presently sensing and experiencing.
  • RecSports offer yoga classes and workshops to give you a designated time to be mindful during your week.
  • Healthy IU has several pre-recorded meditation sessions, that way you can take a moment for mindfulness at any time.
  • The IMU has recently created an interfaith prayer and reflection space open to students from all religious and spiritual backgrounds. If you’re in the middle of campus and need a quiet, serene place to pause and reflect, the KP Williams Room (second floor) is open on everyday from 8 am to 8 pm.

When it comes to narrowing down your passions, habits, values, and larger purpose in life, there’s a good chance that your past experiences and choices have already provided a bit of an outline to work from. By reflecting on and connecting the recurring events and ideas you’ve to what you’re doing right now, pinpointing the common theme(s) may give you insight into what has/hasn’t worked, what you do/don’t value, and what your ultimate purpose may/may not be pointing to.

Progressing through your spiritual journey with others might be more up your alley. Get involved in one of IU’s spirituality or self-improvement student groups to support others that may be facing the same spiritual concerns you are.

Through volunteering and helping other students and members of your community, you’ll be able to consider yourself as part of something bigger and uplift the community and world around you.

Your Spiritual Wellness to-do lists

Check out these ideas provided by the Student Health Center's Peer Health and Wellness Educators on what you can do to improve your spiritual wellness and build resilience.

This week:

  • Read books
  • Find a place of worship
  • Join a student organization or club
  • Download apps like WellTrack, Headspace, and Calm

This month:

  • Explore what spirituality means to you
  • Talk about spirituality and the meaning of life
  • Align your values and beliefs with how you move forward in life