Monthly Musing: Strong in Spirit - Your Spiritual Savings Account

As a part of being human, we all get challenging “hits” in life but many of us are not able to bounce back or thrive after the hit. Some actually fall into a deep depression, despair, anger, shame, guilt, and hatred for years or decades, losing out on feeling joyful, cherished, and abundant as a result of not having spiritual resilience. Most of you know my story, having made the decision to forgive Tariq’s killer, which not only helped me and my family heal but has landed me on higher ground. By “higher ground” I mean that there is a way to not only get through all of the challenges that life hands you, but there is always a potential to transmute the tragedies and acquire a more meaningful life on the other side. What has manifested in my life in the aftermath of this tragedy is beyond my wildest dreams.

I would have never become a published author had I not endured the deep sorrow of losing my son to gun violence. I would not have touched the lives of so many people had I not been invited to speak on hundreds of stages around the world. And I would not have prevented the lives of many other children from being affected by youth violence had I not founded TKF to end the cycle of crime before it starts. To say that my life is more full now than it would have been if I stayed in my career path of investment banking prior to my life’s hardest hit – is an understatement. My life now has more purpose, meaning, peace, and potential than it ever did before I was handed this challenge.

This musing will share the strategies that helped me strengthen my resilience muscle and it can do the same for you.

I was fortunate that I was introduced to spiritual resiliency at an early age – which I attribute to my success in transversing a seemingly impossible, devastating hardship to manifest a fulfilling and meaningful life in the aftermath. I was lucky to grow up in a family that valued the importance of spiritual strength as a precursor to negotiating life’s hardest hits. My mom was very spiritual, and my dad was a businessman. Because of this, I grew with the guidance that my career and spiritual life were EQUALLY important. The operative word here is “equally.”

We, westerners, are a hard-working lot and expend effort and time in our careers but ignore developing our spiritual fortress. Let me make this next point absolutely clear, as you may hear me say in my interviews and speeches often because it is an important message to the world:

In life, you are going to face tough hits that your intellect nor your career success are going to be able to get you through. However, there are no hits or challenges that you will face in the course of your life that your spirit cannot help you conquer. Not only can your spirit help you overcome adversity, but it will also deliver you to a higher ground where you can thrive.

I learned this the hard way; that in order to take life’s heartbreaking, mind-boggling, and gut-wrenching hits and come out on top, you must keep yourself in a prime spiritual condition. What helped me to survive the loss of my only son was that I had been practicing good spiritual hygiene for many years leading into my tragedy.

To become spiritually resilient, you must prioritize developing and maintaining practices and habits that support your spiritual well-being and growth. This does not mean that you neglect other aspects of your body/mind/soul connection. In my 27 years of doing this work, I have met many spiritually resilient people who are more often in better physical, mental, and emotional shape than their fragile counterparts.

You must give special attention to maintaining your soul’s alignment and this will make a huge difference when you are blindsided by misfortune or loss. Just as you need sleep, nutrition, and exercise, you must also take care of your spirit. This is what I teach in my course, Strong in Spirit.

When I was 21 years old, I met a guru that inspired me to learn to meditate. I was running a company with 100 people, and I told him – “I am way too busy to learn to meditate.” His response was, “If you learn to meditate, you will accomplish your tasks in half the time.”

That got my attention! When Gandhi was overwhelmed with too many appointments and tasks, he always made time to meditate – for longer than usual – knowing that it would help him accomplish the day’s work. Today, my meditation practice is two hours a day. I never skip my meditation. On my website, there is a free guided meditation on how you can bring spirit into helping you manifest your life’s mission (Here is the link). To this day, 50 years after meeting that guru, it continues to be my mainstay.

Another practice that has helped me get through everything is to journal regularly. Journaling is essentially writing down your feelings, emotions, and challenges. It is also communicating with your inner guidance and intuition. It helps you to clarify and bring light to your situation. Journal by asking yourself, “what assistance do you need in solving your predicament?” If it does not show up, then it will show up in serendipitous signs during the day or in a subsequent journaling event. In a way, journaling is a type of meditative inquiry, connecting you to your higher self. Be results orientated.

For optimal success, make this a daily habit. Just like you brush and floss your teeth, make spiritual hygiene a daily routine. My daily practice is to meditate, pray, read something inspiring, and then be in gratitude for the blessings in my life – all before I “start” my work day. It is important to give yourself this gift of inward spiritual reflection, to tend to yourself as you would to a work project or daily job duty. I end my morning meditation with gratitude and commit to staying in gratitude and as a result, I am healthier, happier, peaceful, and in the flow of life.

As taught by Deah Curry, “Spiritual hygiene is mindful attention to developing and sustaining a relationship with ourselves as spiritual beings.” It will be the best investment you will ever make. While there is no question that taking care of your body and health is a smart move, there is no getting around the fact that your body is a depreciating asset. No matter how well you take care of your body, its strength and stamina will atrophy over time. However, when you practice spiritual hygiene, it is entirely possible for your spiritual health to improve over the course of your life, granting you a youthful glow and spiritual stamina that will inspire your body to tag along. It has done that for me.

Any investment advisor will tell you it is smarter to invest in an “appreciating asset” than a “depreciating one,” so start to invest regularly in your “spiritual bank account.” When you need to make a withdrawal after taking a hard hit, there will be something there to sustain you just as a savings account can carry you through the ups and downs of the market.

It is best to do this at an early age – I began at 21. Having said that, it is never too late to begin this practice. Many start later in their lives, often in their 50s, and get equal benefits. The main takeaway from this communiqué is to create a daily practice. I never miss meditation. Even when I am traveling and dealing with time zones, I might need to reduce my 2-hour practice to an hour, but I still commit to myself and it has made all the difference in my life.

This summer, I will be launching my first evergreen course, an in-depth discovery masterclass on how to become Strong in Spirit. I promise that it will transform your spiritual resiliency with real-life tools and wisdom you can apply to manifest amazing outcomes regarding your life’s dreams and personal mission. Over the last 20 years, this workshop has done this for most of my participants and I look forward to sharing it with the whole world, regardless of timing, location, or any other factor that was previously limiting this work from reaching you. Join my waitlist to learn more about this unique program. For now, you can start with the course based on The Secrets of the Bulletproof Spir i t below in the Events section. Enjoy 50 % off with the code provided.

My mission in life is to teach that peace is possible, and though I often use the practice of forgiveness as a streamlined path to peace and purpose, my personal approach has a few layers. One cannot just wake up and forgive themselves or another for an atrocious behavior. There has to be a foundation of spiritual strength as a precursor to lean into for the support it takes to see the bigger picture and envision a better life beyond the situation.

So as it turns out, I started my adult life as an investment banker helping businesses around the world thrive by developing sustainable practices within their organizational systems. Now, I am helping people in a similar way, but on the spiritual plane. My work now is helping people identify profits and losses within their scope of peace and purpose, ultimately helping them increase their bottom line of spiritual resilience and fully invest in their future. It will reward you with exponential growth and a healthy return on investment.

Peace and many blessings!

Azim Khamisa