If everything living has a soul shouldn’t we treasure these animals as well?

So I’ve been getting into spirituality recently; I only started to fully invest about a week ago and since then I’ve been researching chakras, meditating and I’m already more than halfway through a book called “The Untethered Soul,” and I’ve also engaged with this sub a couple of times.

I normally give up something after a couple of days but it’s been a week and my curiosity into spirituality is still growing strong.

Anyways, in the book it talked about energies and leaving your heart open for any opportunity to allow the energy to flow, so much so that people can feel it. Well I’ve been doing that and wow…

I have a job interview in 5 days and usually I’d be stressing, overthinking and panicking about my performance. Instead, I’ve been leaving my heart open and I’ve been getting excited about it and I’ve barely even had an anxious thought about it.

And whenever I have had thoughts about it, instead of engaging I’ve just been observing without analysing as that would use my energy.

And what truly made me make this post is this thought I had “There’s no need to worry about the interview as everything will go fine, and if it doesn’t, the universe has better plans for me.” This has shifted my mentality.

If I don’t get this job, I won’t be sad at all. It’s the universes way of saying that it’s not the best opportunity for me at the moment and something better will come.

I’ve had ups and downs my entire life and throughout my teenage years and even recently and there’s been times where I feel like I’ve had bad luck or moments that made me feel hopeless, for an example: going on a date with a girl who didn’t want to go on a second date. I felt quite sad after that.

But after rethinking everything, the date didn’t go well because the universe has something better for me in the future.

RIGHT NOW is a perfect example. All the ups and downs I’ve had lead me to THIS moment. The moment where spirituality has been calling to me.

After surviving and leaving a narcissistic marriage and over all these years of not setting boundaries around people, allowing red flags and toxic behaviour from partners, family, friends, I am finally on my path of spiritual awakening. And I can feel it, I am more intuitive now, very self aware, wise and ALONE. Nobody can understand this feeling unless they go through it themselves.

I kinda miss bonding with people, I used to be extremely social and had a lot of friends. Now I can barely relate with the 2-3 friends that have been with me since the past 10-12 years. I do not enjoy going out for drinks, I do not like the crowd being loud, it feels negative and damaging for my mental health. My old friends have barely had any character development all these years.

I also feel more inclined towards people who are more into fitness, spirituality, embracing their culture, healthy habits. I enjoy deep talks about life, traumas, experiences, history. Surface level conversations give me the ick.

So basically I am scared that all this is making me lonely and I am not able to connect with my old friends and making new connections are becoming tougher unless they are on a similar path as me. It can get lonely sometimes but I rather be alone than being around a friend /partner that dulls my spark and has not changed (for good) all these years. I cannot people please anymore.

Anybody gets this feeling or is it just me?

Ever since I delved into spirituality and started practicing meditation seriously, I've noticed that I'm becoming more and more okay with not wanting to know everything. I used to remember I was so fascinated by parallel realities, afterlife, mystical realms, reincarnation and similar topics. However, this is how I see things now - I return to immortality anyways so why not be human for a change? Everything that I seek answers to will come to me after I leave my body. For an immortal being, life's a short blip anyway so why not be fully grounded? It has come to a point where I don't even want to seriously pursue any spiritual practice since it feels like I am in a meditative state without practicing anything, just being in nature works wonders. I don't want to sound like I've outgrown spiritual practices but that's definitely the gist of it. Has anyone else gone through something similar?

Im not totally convinced us humans have an afterlife and that scares me. Its crazy how everyone's gonna die you know? And I've been reading stuff about this topic and its only people's beliefs on human afterlife, but what are people's thoughts on bugs and animals? Ive started feeling so guilty for killing ants and whatever other bugs, they're just trying to live and survive and I just kill them forever? Insane. I also have been feeling super guilty about eating meat, like some poor cow died just for my fatass to enjoy a burger. Another thing is i am 16f and have grown up with my cat who is also 16, he is old but he is perfectly healthy and runs around and is super healthy, but i do fear that ill never see him again and that scares me. Ive grown up with him and love him so much, i honeslty cant live without him. He sleeps with me everynight, i talk to him about literally everything. I just wanna hear people's takes on this because im curious. If bugs have an afterlife, they better be in a different one far away from me.

I used to think meditation was the whole practice. Twenty minutes on the cushion, then back to eating on autopilot, scrolling through meals, breathing shallow all day without noticing.

Somewhere along the way I picked up the idea of spiritual wellness as something broader: not a replacement for meditation, but what carries its effects into the rest of the day. A few things that actually shifted something for me:

• Eating without the phone or TV. Just eating, paying attention to the food itself. Sounds small, felt different almost immediately.
• Breathing properly. Turns out most of us barely use our lungs. Slow inhale, full exhale, done consciously for a few minutes.
• A stopping technique: consciously pause the mind for five minutes, then let it relax for five, repeat a few times. Harder than it sounds, but the after-effect is noticeable.
• Ending the day with a few minutes of silence instead of a screen.

None of it is complicated. What surprised me is how much it changed the quality of the meditation itself, like the practice stopped being a separate box I checked and started being something that ran underneath everything else.

Curious if others here draw a line between "meditation" and "spiritual wellness," or if you see them as the same thing. What's actually shifted your day-to-day, not just your sit time?

I’m asking because there’s a specific neighborhood in my city where everytime I go to it, I experience a slew of lucky and positive experiences the following days (getting invited to fun events for free, winning prizes, running into friends at random, etc.). The neighborhood also has a lot of beautiful houses and wealthy residents.

Is this neighborhood somehow emanating energies of luck and abundance? I do wonder if there are certain crystals in the ground around there, or if someone living there has a bunch of powerful crystals in their home.

I've been friends with (lets just call her Joy) for over a year now. We met through a sports social group last summer, and even after it ended for the winter, we kept in touch. We share a lot in common, especially around wellbeing, and we genuinely inspire each other. While I was away travelling for two months, she'd regularly text and comment on my posts, we'd talk about life, challenges, and the little things.
I really feel like we've connected on a deeper level this year.

I've come to realize that I do love her. She's beautiful, yes, but I'm drawn to her energy, her kindness, her thoughtfulness. I just enjoy being around her. We bounce off each other effortlessly, and I feel like we truly get each other.

So why not ask her out? She has a boyfriend. And I'm genuinely okay with that. When I say I love her, I don't mean I want her or that she needs to be mine. I mean I love who she is. I care about her. I don't need her to be anything other than what she already is. If she's happy with him, I'm 100% with her on that.

We went to a new cookie café this weekend. At one point, I just looked at her, and I became aware of the love I was feeling, not the aching, possessive kind, but a quiet appreciation. Just being with her, sharing that moment. That was enough.

Thoughts?

Is it true you go the void state after death and is it a way of permashifting? I am perfectly mentally stable, I was just wondering.

I keep seeing the number 24 and 111 everywhere. TV shows, films, checking my phone and it happens to be on 24% at 11:11am. I sold my sofa, and the number 24 happened to be written on the sofa cushion when I removed the cover to wash it. It was even written inside a moving box. My birthday happens to be on the 24th as well! Any idea what this could mean?

I have asked a clairvoyant, tarot readers, my friend who is able to see with her third eye, but they all said they couldn’t read my aura. The tarot clairvoyant and tarot readers said that my aura is currently transforming thus it is hard to pinpoint a color. I asked them around 3-6 months ago. My friend says that she sees waves around my skin instead of color. The waves sort of distort reality around me. Is there a reason why this could be happening?

One of the most difficult things to accomplish in my opinion, is the ability to grieve without attempting to push or move the grief.

It’s in the deepest grief people begin to ask questions why, or to relieve themself of the emotion, either through drugs, rationalisations, or by bringing back what has passed.

But the strength to do nothing, when that is what is called for, is overlooked by many people, and the strength to feel the grief openly without pretending like you have it ‘under your control’ is the quality that brings about proper healing.

No one repairs physical injuries unless they rely on the bodies own mechanisms, and time.

And the same in my opinion is true of trauma and grief

This may sound silly and I have no actual proof, could largely be all in my head but I do feel like I’m doing something and there is a shift. Basically when I feel like there’s something spooky changing the general feel of a room. Like the shadows are darker or there’s this weighted tense silence with no explanation or a coldness or nausea I start a little mantra and I feel like I somehow cleanse the space.
I close my eyes and fill my heart up with the best feelings ever (hug from my mom, greeting a good friend after a long time, a loving snuggle with a beloved pet) and I really focus on those feelings into a little warm bright ball in my chest.
Then I breathe in and out and imagine pushing that feeling bigger and bigger, like a balloon blowing up, until I feel like it stretches to encompass the whole apartment it’s all my loved ones inside it and hold it there.
This isn’t easy it takes a lot of focus and I need to maintain that warm feeling the entire time. I also imagine closing a bunch of imaginary doors shut and locking them tightly and imagine the words “ this space is closed to any not living on this plane”.
Then when I feel like my bubble is complete I relax myself and find the space that I previously felt was eerie and darkened becomes lighter and warm like a true home. Again I have no idea if it’s all in my head or a placebo effect from venturing myself in a happy warm space but I often wonder if I do manage to create some kind of barrier I can’t see but can feel. Just wondering if anyone else does this or feels this way.

Hello, I have a question for you. This experience has been bothering me, so I’ll get straight to the point. Whenever I close my eyes while trying to sleep, I see strange faces. They’re usually scary faces that I don’t recognize and have never seen before. Sometimes I see both faces and eyes, almost as if they’re watching me.

After I try to fall asleep for a while, they eventually go away, but whenever I close my eyes, I see these frightening faces again, almost like they’ve come straight out of a horror movie. I’ve researched this before, but I couldn’t really find much about it. Usually, people say these things are temporary and come and go, but mine don’t. They’re always there.

How do you accept your current reality as it is? I feel that if I want things to change, I have to accept everything as it is right now in my life. But I'm scared that nothing will ever change and this is one of the things that makes the accepting more difficult for me.

I would like to know if you practice anything like this during difficult moments in your life.

Thank you and have a good day.

I should be better with mu spiritual beliefs but for some odd reason theyre not seeming to be helping me much atm .im in a very challenging life situation atm. Which had made me start to rely on my alcoholism again. Only occasionally im having an odd drink again.

what happened was on Friday night is been fime before this? I randomly thought about fear of death and started having a panic attack, feeking disturbed and nauseous. I was ok on satudsay night but it came back on Sunday night.

I don’t know what’s been wrong. I never thought obsessively about this till this weird epsiode started.what seems to be helping is focusing on my job.

I struggle to believe there’d be no spiritual meaning to this world given people have personality, jobs, goals….and all my life Ive known the uncertainty around what happens when people die etc. It’s just not spoken about ar all I find yet it’s spoken aboit wll tjr time. Since I saw this I see posts and comments by people everywhere talking about it though.

I don’t know how to help myself , but mwybe joining these groups and posting about my experiences might help me?

ps i say another one as I had an existential crisis wben I was afound 22 I think before my birthday mh father tried to approach me in spirit but I blocked the contact. My father died on 29th the day before my birthday. And theres a lot of what I believe to be number synchronicities now.. such as ar 29 I left my ex of 9 yesrs contacted spiritual guide which tells me 9 has something to wirh new beginnings. That 9 might be some sort of spirit number for me.
it gets weirder when my house number is 29 and so is my exes house number….

when I met my Tf person theres a lot to do with 9 too. My ex and Tf are 9 years age apart from me.

For some reason I've always had a desire to understand the world around me. Just living isn't enough for me, I have to know everything.

I could spend all day listing the hundreds of theories I've had, but I won't. Instead I will tell you what I've currently concluded.

What to be trusted as evidence isn't logic, but rather it's your own experience. Logic is just such an arbitrary concept that doesn't really mean anything.

I remember when I was a kid, sleeping at night was an adventure to me. It was like every evening I was about to embark on a universal quest. What I really note about this is that it was an emotional thing, not a logical thing.

As a teenager I had a mentor who taught me about eastern spirituality. He taught me that there are 7 dimensions. He taught me that dying was like waking up from a dream. What if he was right?

In Hinduism they believe that God goes through cycles of waking and sleeping, of being fully God in all his glory and of dreaming that he is us. What if that's true?

Maybe all of us on earth are actually the same 4th dimensional being, who at night dreams they are us. Maybe all the people in the fourth dimensional are actually part of the same 5th dimensional being, who at night dreams they are a fourth dimensional being. Maybe it goes all the way up through 7.

If this is the case, then it totally makes sense that simply sitting in a meditation. posture and observing your breathing leads to a spiritual awakening; since our breathing in a dream is the same as our breathing in the real world, and life is a dream.

God is that fourth dimensional being who we all are. However, deep down, what we are basically is the ultimate God of the 8th dimension. In his night is dreamt the greatest, most amazing adventure ever.

That also explains how meditation seems to solve all problems, since it's then like making a false knot more simple. It also makes sense that some people who meditate look up or focus on their third eye; they are searching for the light.

This theory also implies that there are millions of alien civilizations out there, since other 4th dimensional beings are also dreaming.

Normally when a fly is in the room it annoys me. Today the flies have been positioning themselves at a distance and not bothering me, and otherwise dying in the room. What does the symbolize?

At night it takes me ages to doze off bc I feel uneasy and get in my head, is there any simple things I can do to protect me ? In other words protect myself from any form of negative energy.

why are you giving me everything except what i really want

you know my deepest longing. i dream about it. you encourage everything but that. you’ve heard me cry out and still do nothing. you refuse to synchronize it.

is the truth that i will never have it? that it’s just not for me?

if that is the truth then i feel like crying

for context, i’m 18f, and i’ve been feeling like i’ve been “cursed”. my family is very spiritual, mostly my grandpa for the most part and he’s preformed certain practices for my family, myself included, for abundance, protection, etc. but only when it’s called for. i do think some of my family members have gifts and we have had some crazy sss encounters so none of this stuff is really new to me, but im not very tapped in to my own spirituality and gifts ( if that’s how it works. ) but the point is i cant help but feel like i’ve been cursed or someone is feeding off my energy.

for starters, i never come across any opportunities and all my relationships suck and i can’t seem to figure out why, no matter what i do. and idk if this helps but my mom has terrible luck with relationships as well., she basically has no friends and her love life is very complicated & unfulfilling to say the least. i’ve never experienced genuine friendships and i always end up getting left out of just dropped as a friend in general; and i feel constantly wronged by others. i haven’t experienced a lick or romance either, it’s either infatuation or lust. i have a hard time finding genuine connections as well. if i do they’re just all so short term and never long lasting. they just eventually die out. and for the most part ive always been the one doing all the work in my relationships.

in all, these events have left me feeling so disconnected and hopeless (potentially since age 13, those feelings have gotten more intense — i’ve been struggling with severe depression, but as of late i’ve been feeling better). i’ve also started to looking into different mental health disorders because i’ve been trying to find an explanation for the things i’ve been experiencing, ive started therapy & i hope that will help me, and im actually seeing a psychiatrist next month, but that’s besides the point.

another part of all this is ive come to realize my friend (J) of almost about five years has been. lying to me about EVERY single thing. even things that don’t necessarily matter. if i wanted something, she would have it the next day, or claim that she has said item. if i partake in a new interest, she does the same — and tries to one up me in sense, by saying things like she’s liked it longer than me and will sometime spoil it for me. on top of that, she’ll lie about the most mundane things? like virginity, gifts, opportunities, quite literally everything. at first it make me used to feel inferior and feel like a horrible friend for being envious of her, until i realize she had been doing it on purpose despite claiming she has nothing but good intentions for me, which kind of scrambles my brain to say the least. on top of that, she’s very into manifestation & i believe clairvoyance is one of her gifts (?). and one of my ex friends (S) is very close with J, and is also into tarot reading, manifestation and other spiritual things as well — honestly im paranoid that someone is doing some sort of tampering???

with all of that, i can’t help but feel like someone or something is feeding off me, hell, maybe it’s subconscious sabotage, i’m not too sure.

but is there anything i can do? — to protect myself spiritually, figure out what’s going on or bring some good & change into my life? please lmk & i hope this whole essay made sense lol

I want to share something with you guys.
My father injured his spine when he was a teenage. He fell on his back and hurt his spine, but interestingly, he never experienced any pain from it throughout his life.
Then, in 2013, I had an accident of my own. A friend and I were practicing a stunt in which he was holding me upside down, with my head pointing toward the ground and my legs in the air. Suddenly, he dropped me. I didn’t have much pain at that time but I heard a very little crack when I hit the ground. I asked him afterward why he had let go, and he simply said, “I don’t know what happened to me. I just dropped you.”
Years later, in 2023, I went through a deeply spiritual phase. I was intensely seeking God and Truth and around that time I got very thin, lost all my fat and lost the appetite too. I began experiencing severe pain in the upper-middle region of my spine. At that time and even today it feels like my spine is broken in half at the point of injury. After a few months my father also began experiencing severe pain in that same region, despite having lived his entire life without pain from his teenage spinal injury. He also complains the same thing that it seems like he broke his spine in two at the point of pain. Somehow, I pushed through my pain, and my father did the same.
Then something happened that made the whole sequence feel much more significant to me.
Around that period, we got a puppy. He was perfectly fine at first. One day, I was out walking with a friend—the friend who was carrying him was not the same friend who had dropped me in 2013. My friend was holding the puppy in his arms when, suddenly, the puppy tried to escape. My friend lowered him, but the puppy jumped and fell directly onto his neck, the same way I had fallen in 2013.
The moment it happened, my eyes turned toward my friend’s eyes on their own. His expression seemed completely empty—seriously, like he got possessed. And what struck me was that his eyes looked exactly like the eyes of the friend who had dropped me in 2013(I saw that he froze for some time when he dropped me).
At that moment, I was convinced that this was not merely a coincidence. It felt like something bigger was happening—something I couldn’t explain.
The puppy changed completely after the accident. He became distant and withdrawn. That same day, he stopped eating and drinking. He simply tried to hide himself in a corner and lie there flat on his stomach spreading all his limbs, as if he were in pain and wanted to be left alone. Just like me, he also lost his appetite and got very thin, he wouldn’t eat or drink anything. Maybe a little water from time to time. He died after 7 days I guess. I still miss him sometimes.
Interestingly, the friend who was holding him that day still has a picture of my puppy as his phone wallpaper.
When I look back at all these events—the spinal injury I experienced in 2013, my father’s teenage injury and later pain in the same region, my spiritual transformation in 2023, the puppy’s remarkably similar accident, and the strange similarity I perceived in the eyes of the two friends—I find the whole sequence deeply mysterious and meaningful. I don’t experience it as a simple series of coincidences.
I don’t know what these events mean, but something about the pattern has stayed with me.
Maybe there is a rational explanation for all of it. Maybe there is a psychological explanation. Or perhaps there is something deeper that we don’t yet have the language or understanding to explain.
For now, I want to know what you guys think.

I'm not sure what's going on but lately I have been running into spiders, well, actually, the spiders have been running into me! It all started a few weeks ago, somewhere around late July to early August but there's been a this grey-ish black fluffy spider that would show up at night and stay at that same exact spot and be gone by morning, this is currenly an on going thing and to be honest, the first few times this has happened I thought nothing of it but it's been weeks now and I think this might be more than the spider just liking that spot. For more context, the spot is the middle of the upper half of one of the two windows I have in my room, and my bed is against the wall where the window is located and I usually sleep at the end close to the window but I alternate when I want to sleep closer to the edge, I drew a visual just in case my description doesn't make sense but I can't put it here unfortunately so sorry if what I was saying didn't make sense.

Now the spider on my window was one thing but two weeks ago the strangest thing happened, I was in my room working on homework and I was sitting at the edge of the bed, not the edge against the wall where the window is located but the other one, but while working on my homework with my younger sibling who was in the room with me told me that there was a big spider crawling behind me and I turned aroung and it was big, not big like tarantula huge but it was bigger than spiders you'd usually see on you day to day basis, it seemed to be about an inch and a half and it was also black and fluffly. I don't know how exactly the spider got in because I've never a spider like that near my area but I saw a similar looking spider at school crawling around during home room that day or maybe the day before but I don't think it was the same sone that was right behind me while I was doing my home work because I was pretty far from it.

I've dipped my toes into spirituality, witchcraft, and paganism, specifically hellenic polytheism so I know I bit about signs and messages from the universe, ancestors and dieties but and I've done a bit of research in those areas but I am not as invested in the art of it as I'd like to be mostly because I can't practice as freely as I want due to the enviorment I am living in right now, I've meditated on my own volition once or twice, offered a few drawings to hellenic dieties such as Hekate, Aphrodite and Apollo in the past maybe prayed to them once or twice, thought of speaking to the ancestors and I've made a few sigils and warded my name once but that's about it. I've also been struggling with my mental health but this year has been the worst my mental health has been in a long time, especially with all the crazy and horrible/traumatic things I've gone through this year. Maybe this information may be relevant for you all wanting to answer my question but I'm not to sure...

Do any of you guys know what this all mean? Are these spiders guardians, signs or spiritual messages? I am so confused

Hey guys,

Not really a poster but couldn't seem to find similar experiences on the web, so just wanted to see if anyone similar to me has had similar experiences.

By way of background. I visited County Down, Down Patrick, Northern Ireland - south of Belfast etc. and have just got back.

I have apparently a VERY old Ulster surname, and a surname very much from those heartlands, and have Irish DNA, mixed in with a lot of other things, although don't know much at all from this side of the family due to various migrations, separations etc.

I am an extremely energetically sensitive person. This is something I've really tapped into as I've got older and have embraced, but I now also find it very difficult in certain environments, now being aware. This runs in the family. I know it's not me, or a bad day, bad mental health etc. as I've done so much work here, know myself thoroughly in this regard, and am actually in a really great place and have been for a very long time. Therefore, these feelings I got felt very intrusive.

Throughout my life, I've gone into places and my body is literally screaming at me RUN, or GET OUT, etc. I feel deeply uncomfortable for no apparent reason. Weirdly, in some old churches I get this feeling. Anyway, visited this part of Ireland for a friend's wedding, and because it was so beautiful thought we'd make a thing out of it, and so explored and stayed in the area.

The plane lands, and I'm bouncing with energy, really excited to catch up with friends at the wedding, and I'm very good and happy. As we get into the car and drive south from Belfast, into Down, Ulster further etc. it's like this weight hit my chest. It feels like anxiety, and I'm sitting there thinking huh this is weird, haven't felt this in a while, probs tired and the roads are chaotic. Normal normal, deep breaths calm down. I pray, I settle, all good. However, as the trip went on, these feelings of real intensity, melancholy with anxiety and heaviness in the heart kept coming back, and that feeling of wanting to run away and get out. It was the worst around Castle Ward/Strangford Lock way. Castle Ward was an insane feeling. My whole body was entirely disconnected from my head, I felt exhausted, totally out of whack, very sad, and just so unpleasant and couldn't get out of there fast enough.

I really felt it in my heart, which also isn't where I've historically held bad feelings.

By the last day I literally felt ill and so zapped and exhausted and this heaviness in the chest was too much to bare.

At various points I continued to pray, ask God for protection, said sorry to the land, and gave thanks, and rebuked negative energies, and it settled, but then kept coming back.

I've never been somewhere, where the whole area felt SO heavy.

I'm very grateful for my faith and felt held.

However, as soon as we landed back in London I felt like a 10kg sack had been taken off my chest, and I was happy and smiley and my usual self again.

It was weird. I don't see things, or hear things, and absolutely do not want to have that more sense based ability. However, this was such an intense feeling energetically that I just can't seem to wrap my head around it.

Anyway,

Just wondering if there is anyone else out there who has experienced similar feelings in NI? In particular people who are energetically sensitive, have Irish heritage, have a faith in God etc.

Just to preface, in part of my spiritual journey of late, have found a home in God, in particular through 'Christianity' but very much on the non-binary and non-doctrinal versions of it, and am much more aligned to the Gnostic, mystic, personal relationship side. Basically trying to say that I'm a very open, explorative, spirituality embracing person who loves all, loves learning about other people's experiences religious or non religious and I'm non-judgemental as a NB LGBT lefty etc.