What is Spirituality?

 I consider spirituality to be both experiential and personal and I resonate with R Katz’s writing on Spirituality in his book ‘Indigenous Healing Psychology’

I consider that spirituality is lived and felt in our experience and our bodies rather than undertaken as an intellectual activity. It is also personal and therefore it is unique and individual to each of us, even when we might be part of a world religion.

For these reasons it can be hard to convey in words and can get a reputation as being vague/wooly/airy fairy and disconnected. On the contrary I consider the spiritual realm of our lives to be of the utmost importance and to have great gravity. I consider we all have the potential to be spiritual beings, but sometimes we might need some space and support to work out what that means for us individually.  

In this modern world, in the era of late stage capitalism, our spiritual beliefs have the potential to be an essential guiding star and can take us beyond the confines of narrow ego identity. ‘Spiritual experiences are key to mental health and communal wellbeing’ ( Dr Joan Koss-Chiono, anthropologist and research psychologist)

Often trauma brings us closer to the spiritual realm/domain, raising questions about meaning of life and how to live. It may challenge our spirituality, calling into question our faith, or it may strengthen or transform it.  As Dr Joan Koss-Chioino puts it ‘transformation as a change in the 'ultimate concerns, values, meaning-making that can reshape life directions'. Life may take on new meaning, and how we had been living up to that point may suddenly feel out of date.

Research across US, India and China including all major world religions as well as individual and secular belief systems shows five areas common to all (led by Dr Lisa Miller; professor in clinical psychology at Columbia University) :

1.     Altruism

2.     Love of others as oneself

3.     Sense of oneness

4.     Practice of sacred transcendence

5.     Adherence to moral code

All of these areas relate to our relationship with ourselves and ‘others’ in different ways,

These areas may be described differently in each tradition, but show something about the commonality of spirituality across human experience.

You might relate to these areas, or there might be other areas that are important to you.

I like this quote from Ratu Civo, a Fijian healer ‘Being open to the spiritual brings the spiritual into our lives, simply…no fanfare’   (quoted by R Katz in Indigenous Healing psychology). Spirituality can be normal, familiar, part of our everyday lives and determined by ourselves. It cannot be owned by any one institution or philosophy.

Spirituality  might be quiet, reflective, daily, which makes me think of the Wim Wenders film ‘‘Perfect Days’ about the life of a man working as a cleaner in Tokyo’s public toilets. On the other hand spirituality might find its expression for you in collective practices -ritual, marches, carnival, protest, singing or acts of worship with others that might be noisy and colourful! Solitary, collective, quiet, noisy, outdoors, in a special building, in your own home: There is no single way.

I imagine most or all of us have had experiences that feel spiritual – the unexpected glimpse of a full moon, a sense of solidarity with other people at a difficult time, an encounter with an animal in the wild, fallen snow arrived in the night, an act of care for or from a stranger, being present at times of birth or death.

I’m interested in the connection between our somatic, deeply embodied experience of life and our spirituality. In my work with survivors of trauma over many years, I have experienced how these two areas are closely linked. As we get in touch more and more with our embodied experience of the world and being in our bodies, somehow this earthy experience often opens the door to connection to oneself, others and the natural world and something beyond the realm of the ordinary, into the territory of spirituality. Sometimes such experiences are hard to pin down in words, but felt and known strongly. It might be a sense of ' there is more than this'.

‘Everybody worships...And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship…is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive’ David Foster Wallace in ‘This is Water’’

What do you worship? What do you turn your attention towards, spend your time doing, thinking about, planning towards? What is your spirituality – what do you believe about the meaning of life? What values matter to you? What keeps you in touch with those values in your day to day life?