INTRODUCTION
Your Sacred Responsibility
There comes a time on our individual path of spiritual evolution when lighting a candle to feel grounded is no longer enough. You brush your teeth and wash your body every single day to prevent disease and stay clean. But what do you do every day to heal your soul?
At some point, you will realize that healing does not come just from what you do, but from what you’re willing to face.
You will face a pivotal moment when your soul begins to ache, not because you have done something wrong, but because it’s time to return to your essence. That essence is innocent. Th at essence is pure. When I look around the world today, I sense that this is that time. We live in a world that demands our attention, steals our breath, and teaches us to forget who we really are. We are conditioned to perform rather than feel. To pretend we are OK instead of doing the work required
to be OK. Unfortunately, you cannot decorate internal debris. You cannot pray away the pain you deny or the mental chatter you won’t face. You cannot shift, change, grow, evolve, or heal if you are dragging the weight of what you have not cleansed or released. Having learned this the hard way, I now know with every fiber of my being that Spiritual Hygiene matters.
I think of Spiritual Hygiene as the daily, sacred devotion of clearing your inner space. It is the loving commitment to honoring your thoughts, emotions, energy, and soul with the same reverence you give to your sacred belongings. Your mind is an altar. Your heart is a temple. Your presence is holy. And sometimes, the most powerful revelations come through your deepest pain.
I had once lived there too. In the trenches of fear and survival. Over time, with practice and pain, guided by Spirit, I gradually climbed my way into a different consciousness. I discovered a world where everything is energy, and nothing is
personal. I entered a higher level of spiritual consciousness, where love doesn't need to be earned or proven. Where you know deep in your bones that you are a soul, not just a body. I learned that you can delay, deny, resist, and avoid healing, but you cannot fail at it because healing is real, and forgiveness is freedom.
I am not where I am today because I’m better, stronger, or more talented than you or anyone else is. I’m here because I choose, moment by moment, day after day, to practice Spiritual Hygiene. To cleanse the debris of what I have encountered and endured throughout my life with forgiveness.
Our physical world is collapsing. What once worked to keep us safe is no longer effective for moving forward. But our spiritually energetic world is rising. The spiritual world beckons us to question most of what we have been taught. Some of us, as teachers and lightworkers, are building bridges between the two depths of life and understanding. Some are still stuck in the rubble. As I began to prepare
to write this book, I reviewed my own life. I examined my thoughts, emotions, regrets, and practices. I realized how essential this work is not just for our peace, but for our survival, the survival of this world we all love.
Whether you are new to this type of work or returning to what your soul has always known, these pages are for you. I pray that what I share here will become your sacred yes. I invite you to allow one moment of one thing you read on these pages to be the moment you choose clarity over confusion, alignment over exhaustion, and Divine presence over performance. Do you want to feel inspired again, like everything you do is in step with your Divine purpose? Do you want to
feel authentically connected to both your inner truth and a community that supports you? Do you want to find joy in the small things you experience every day? Let this truth be your invitation:
You can choose a different reality. You can rise above anything and everything. You can cleanse your mind and heart because your soul was never soiled. You can remember who you truly are. And when you do, not only will you be free, but your presence demonstrates to others that it is possible for them to choose freedom too.
Excerpted from Spiritual Hygiene
A Practical Path for Clean Living, Inner Authority, and Divine Freedom. Copyright © 2025. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
