Feed Your Spirit Instead of Your Mouth

Something hit me while I’ve been working on myself and chasing real wisdom. Wisdom to improve, to become a better person—for me and for the people around me.

One thing stands out clear as day: so many folks are feeding their mouth but starving their spirit.

We see a lot of overweight people (and honestly, we all get impulsive sometimes). We make choices to feed our flesh, to serve our body in the moment, and then regret it later. These same people hit the fanciest restaurants, eat the best food, drink the finest wine and cocktails—and still they’re unhappy. Negative. Mad at their spouse, mad at their kids, mad at themselves. They’re miserable.

What I see is people feeding their mouth nonstop while their spirit goes hungry. Spiritually starving.

I believe that’s exactly what the world needs right now: more of us feeding our spirit—especially with everything going on out there. In just the last week I’ve watched spouses fight, road rage flare up over nothing, negativity pouring out of people’s mouths, and the news cycle pumping more of the same. Knee-jerk reactions everywhere. All of it screams one thing to me: a spiritually starving crowd.

If we don’t feed our spirit, I don’t think we can ever be truly happy.

I come from the Christian faith and I’ve recently come back to it, but I’m not preaching religion here. I’m saying we need to feed our spirit. We need to work on ourselves. Because one day—turns out we all die—at my funeral, what do I want people saying? That I was always trying to help others, that I was fun to be around, positive, helpful, putting others first? Or that I was a negative guy who sucked the sunshine out of every room?

If they’re talking about a negative person in my memory, I can only imagine it was a miserable life full of regrets.

This is a spiritual journey for me. As I feed my spirit, it wakes me up. It makes me watch my flesh, watch my impulses, watch what I eat, watch how I move through my day, watch how I react to others. Feeding my spirit has taught me to think things through, to use the wisdom I’ve sought out to make decisions instead of just going with the flow, following the crowd, or reacting on emotion.

It’s helped my family life. It’s helped my relationships. It’s gotten me back on track. It puts things in perspective. It gets me up in the morning with vision and purpose again.

Believe me, I’ve done the fancy restaurants and fancy drinks. I’ve let my flesh run the show—how I acted, reacted, and lived. But feeding my spirit, slowly, one day at a time, is truly transforming my life. I’m so grateful I recognized it and that I’m building the discipline to keep feeding it—to keep saying no to the worldly demands, the pressure to go with the flow, to follow the mainstream.

I think a certain number of people are having what I’d call a spiritual awakening right now. I hope as many as possible wake up before it’s too late for them—to get their spirit in shape. Because when the spirit gets strong, the body often follows. You start treating yourself better, treating other people better, and most importantly, you find real purpose, joy, and happiness.

Which brings me to another thought.

It’s wild how many adults—parents, coaches, teachers—are constantly pushing kids to get better: step out of your comfort zone, get in shape, grow as a person, put the phone down, eat healthy, get outside. Yet the same adult barking those orders is buried deep in their own comfort zone. They never push themselves to improve, to get stronger, to learn something new, to get out of that rut. Instead they stay the same—often glued to their phone on the couch, slowly dying from inactivity day by day.

That sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

Let’s look in the mirror. Let’s set the example. Let’s take the step. Let’s all get better.

Join Lyman’s Wild Ways today.

Lyman Miller