Originally posted on the Huffington Post.

Checking in with yourself regularly is the best way to monitor your spiritual health. Building a strong spiritual foundation helps us to achieve an overall life balance. But how do we know if we are on the right track? Meditation, self-help books, and positive affirmations are all great tools, but it can be difficult to take care of our selves consistently in the midst of a busy life.

This spiritual health quiz will reveal just how connected you are to your source, and will also pinpoint areas that might need extra attention.

Please give each question a “True or False” answer. Try to be as honest with yourself as you can. You will gain the most benefits from a true self-assessment.

1. Your Soul’s Garden Is Tended
Just as we must feed our physical body to stay healthy, our spiritual body must be nourished regularly if it is to remain vibrant and functioning properly. Maintaining a daily spiritual practice is the key to a lasting spiritual connection. What this means is that you make sure to do at least one thing every day that is geared towards nourishing your soul. It is consistency, more than the specific practice, that makes the difference.

Commit to something spiritual that you can do regularly. Meditation and guided visualization are both useful options that will help you to connect with your source. You might enjoy praying for a few minutes each morning, or perhaps reading from an inspirational book each evening before bed will do the trick. Regardless of what you do, carving out time to connect with your soul is imperative.

2. You Consciously Surround Yourself With Positive People
Your community is not only a reflection of your consciousness and outlook, but it also influences the experiences that you attract. Positive people lift us up, plain and simple. How do you know if you’re around a positive person? Aside from having an upbeat disposition, they are consistently open to opportunities for increasing joy in their lives. A positive influence will encourage you to take chances to improve your life, rather than just being resigned to where you are. The most successful people in life surround themselves with other successful people who they can look up to.

On the other hand, if you find yourself surrounded by people who frequently gossip, this will ultimately affect your self-esteem and even your manifesting ability. Gossip carries an inherent energy of judgment, which ends up leaking onto us. While it may feel momentarily fun to pick apart someone’s choice of outfit, this tells the universe that we are also open to receiving this kind of criticism.

People who are consistently negative will pull you away from your center. While it may not be realistic to avoid certain people (like family members or work associates), a spiritually balanced person knows not to actively engage in this energy just to make others feel better. Find a circle of people who inspire you to be better.

3. You Don’t Engage In Poverty Consciousness
Poverty consciousness is the (often subconscious) habit of looking at everything through a lens of lack. This is also known as a “glass half empty” perspective. We all have bad days, and this is completely natural. But, if you find yourself regularly looking for the worst possible outcome, then you may be spiritually out of balance.

Even if we are generally positive, poverty consciousness can also be imposed on us by other people. An example of this would be a friend who believes that there are no opportunities for love, abundance or good fortune. They often call their outlook as “being realistic,” but in truth it is simply a way for them to avoid disappointment.

It is natural to want to identify with others, but whether we know it or not, we naturally take on their energy. Again, you may not be able to completely avoid these people, but you do not have to engage in their energy by agreeing with them. No one is expecting you to be positive 100% of the time, but you should always be open to the possibility of wonderful surprises in your life.

4. You Are Clear In Your Vision
Do you put time into thinking about your future path, or are you simply floating through life and waiting to see where it leads you? When we are clear in our vision, the universe aligns to help us along on our journey. In the new age world this is called the art of co-creating. It means that we are taking an active role in bringing desired experiences to our lives.

What kind of experiences would you like to have in this life? How do you want to feel? What are you trying to achieve? While it is important to be flexible and open to adjusting your goals as you go, we must first claim our intention. Becoming clear in our hearts will start us on the process of becoming who we are meant to be.

5. You Know When To Seek Guidance
For many of us, knowing when to ask for help is the key to a spiritually balanced life. Whether it’s due to feeling lonely, overwhelmed, or simply reestablishing a connection to yourself, there is great power in acknowledging when you need help from others. Not only will you benefit from some extra wisdom, but you are allowing other people the opportunity to do a good thing by helping you.

If you are struggling in any area of your life, try to look to other people who inspire you. For example, if your love life is difficult, ask a friend who is in a happy relationship for advice about behaviors that you could change to attract love. Whatever the topic, make sure that your source of guidance is someone that is a living example of the life that you want.

6. You Make Time For Social Media Breaks
In this modern world that we live, social media is both a blessing and a curse. Although apps like Facebook and Instagram provide us with incredible opportunities to connect with others, it ironically also contributes to a greater sense of loneliness. Think about it; if you spend hours looking down at your phone, you have effectively removed yourself from the real world in which you live. People who overuse social media as a replacement for actual, in-person interaction are more likely to be depressed. And depression is a sure-fire way to disconnect from your spiritual center.

The best way to counteract the social media blues is to take regular breaks from it. You should ideally have at least one day each week where you do not check social media at all. Or, block out a specific number of hours each day where you are completely logged off from the virtual world. This disconnection will encourage you to reach out and engage with the real, physical world out there. And for those of you who use social media to promote your business, fret not. There are many useful apps that can be used to pre-plan posts so that you can relax on your days off.

7. You Go On A News Cleanse
Similarly to social media, our constant access to worldwide news is both a blessing and a curse. While we are more informed than ever before, watching or reading the news can cause a spike in anxiety. And television news shows have a tendency to overdramatize stories. You only need to watch them for a few minutes to be overwhelmed by the countless terrible events happening everywhere.

It is also worth noting that most news outlets skew towards negative stories. This is because the most negative, violent reports tend to get the highest ratings and clicks online. Just like when drivers slow down to gawk at a car accident, it is human nature to be drawn into negative stories. But we have the choice of whether or not to feed this energy.

While it is important to stay abreast of current events, it is critical to take regular breaks from the news to reconnect with your center. Try to pick at least one day per week when you do not watch or absorb any kind of news. If you can avoid TV news entirely, that would be best. Reading news online or in print is better because it allows you to use your own voice.

8. You’re Tuned Into Mini-Miracles
Mini-miracles are the small moments during our day when something, anything, good happens. This essentially means that you find gratitude wherever you can. Many of us have hopes and dreams for our lives, and it can feel disappointing if they do not manifest in the time frame that we want. But in my experience, this is a way for the Universe to test us. We must first acknowledge what the universe is giving us by being thankful. A spiritually balanced person knows that having gratitude naturally attracts more positive experiences to us.

There are countless ways to acknowledge mini-miracles in our day. Whether it’s a friend buying you brunch, pulling up to a parking meter with more than enough time left, or the way the light hits your living room in the middle of a Sunday, taking note of mini-miracles lifts our mood and attracts more to us.

Results:
Give yourself one point for each “True” response.

6-8 True Answers: Awesome! Your spiritual center is strongly rooted and helping you along your journey. You know when to check in with yourself, seek guidance from others, and disconnect from patterns that pull you from your center. Best of all, you inspire others with your positive energy! The most powerful way to increase your good mojo is to help loved ones who could use a boost. You are a beacon of light that can lift those around you.

3-5 True Answers: Congratulations! You have a grounded consciousness about you that helps in all situations. You are good at checking in with yourself, but sometimes you put the needs of others first. This is noble, but is ultimately not going to serve you or your loved ones. Your best course of action is to review the items that you answered “false” to and make them a priority this week.

1-2 True Answers: Good Job! You are aware that there is a better way to live, and are open to finding it. However, it can be a struggle to choose love over other paths. We live in particularly complicated times, with all sorts of “noise” that can distort our sense of spiritual balance. The most important thing you can do right now is give yourself the room to do make changes that will help you going forward. Life is a work in progress, and you are worth investing in yourself. Go back over this list and see which areas seem to need the most attention. If you find yourself struggling to remain grateful, you may want to have a daily focus on mini-miracles. Or if you are one of the many people who spend the majority of their day online, you will want to experiment with cutting that down. The fact that you took this quiz in the first place says that your consciousness is asking for a greater connection to spirit.

Is there anything you would add to this list? Please let me know in the comments below!