Exploring Two Qualitatively Different Approaches to Spiritual Health
Spiritual Health and its impact on a true authentic self
Spiritual health is a state of inner well-being that arises from a sense of purpose connected to something greater than oneself, and the ability to find meaning in life’s experiences.
Introduction: Recap of our August 15th issue
In our August 15th issue of Spiritual Health Magazine, we argued that among the various domains of human health, spiritual health is the foundational domain that integrates and supports the other areas. We provided working definitions for the terms spiritual and spiritual health. We asked readers to reflect on whether they recognize and acknowledge something beyond or transcendent to their lives and consider how their answer might impact their spiritual health.
This week’s edition
This week’s edition of Spiritual Health Magazine examines two qualitatively different approaches to spiritual health and consequences associated with each approach. For readers who missed last week’s edition, we define “spiritual” and “spiritual health” as follows: Spiritual- “Being spiritual is about living with a certain inner attitude such as love, empathy, compassion, caring, or kindness.” Spiritual Health- “A state of inner well-being that arises from a sense of purpose, connection to something greater than oneself, and the ability to find meaning in life experiences.”
The candle analogy
A wax candle can burn from both ends. Light the wick at the top, and it burns in one way. Hold a match to the bottom, and it will also burn—but differently. Both ends burn, but the experience from each is qualitatively different. The same can be said for how we approach spiritual health.
Approach one: Truth and morality come from a power transcendent of the natural world
There is a higher, transcendent force, a “divine will” beyond the natural world that transcends the human scientific laws of physics, biology, and chemistry. This view holds that the highest life to live is found in loving and devoting oneself to the divine will. You recognize you're far from the moral and spiritual person you want to be and seek power and guidance in a personal relationship with this divine being. You cultivate a personal relationship with this divine being in association with a religious community, seeking wisdom and insight through sacred texts, associated rituals and practices, and religious authorities.
Approach Two: Power, truth, and morality come from “within.”
In this approach, the individual is responsible for discovering their own truth, cultivating it, and expressing it in the world. Spirituality is a private, personal matter, often accompanied by a rejection religious authority, especially within the monotheistic traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This personalized, inward-focused journey sees the highest aim in life is to get in touch with one’s authentic true self and perfecting it in the world, according to one’s innate human potentials. The idea of surrendering to some kind of higher power that exists beyond the scope of the natural world and human potentialities is viewed as unnecessary and irrelevant to one’s spiritual journey.
Consequences the first approach of spiritual health
The first approach to spiritual health can be likened to a prefabricated house to live in. Imagine watching the eighteen-wheeler flatbed truck pulling up to the two-acre lot you own and plopping down a fully constructed house you bought. All you have to do buy some furniture, hook up the gas, water, and electricity, and move in.
The master architect designed the house to satisfy all your needs in one prepackaged assembly. You just need to get familiar with the peculiarities of the house, inside and out, and as you do, life becomes more and more comfortable and fulfilling.
Hundreds of millions of individuals around the world deal with their spiritual health this way. By “purchasing” an already-constructed religious worldview with associated behaviors and practices, these individuals hope to set themselves up to experience positive spiritual health. The benefits to this approach are self-evident, but not without drawbacks.
Open to surprise or change?
For those who adopt and live by a preconstructed religious worldview, there may come a time when faced with the need to make adjustments. You might begin to sense your life experiences are not matching up with the beliefs and ideas you once wholeheartedly embraced and accepted as undeniable truth. This can be tricky terrain to navigate.
Several years ago, a co-worker invited me to attend Sunday service at his church in Queens, New York. During the service, time was given for devoted church members to give testimony about their faith. An elderly-looking man, with greyish-white hair and a slouching, but stately frame, slowly took to his place on the stage behind the podium:
“I must be a different breed.” he mused, smiling and looking out to the attentive audience. “I’ve not changed one iota of my beliefs in the thirty years of my faith journey. Not once.”
I could sense this gentleman felt very proud in letting the attendees know about his religious convictions. His testimony was impressive to me and at the same time troubling. At that particular time in my faith journey, I was experiencing guilt feelings about doubts I concerning my faith tradition’s teachings and claims on truth. This man’s testimony pierced into my heart: Jack, you have been unfaithful by harboring doubts, and you are getting yourself into deep shit, my inner critic lashed out at me. On the one hand, I envied what seemed to me to be this man’s simply, humble faith. On the other, I knew I could never be proud of not changing my mind and being devoid of doubts concerning my faith journey.
Life experiences were forcing me to see things I once took for granted as true and correct in a new and different light. Trouble was the light was not shining brightly! Things were looking bleak, and I could sense I was going to face further inner turmoil that would require me to make significant changes in my beliefs and attitudes going forward.
Modifying a prefab house of beliefs and practices can be costly, time-consuming on your end. Typically, the master builder, in this case the religious authorities in the community, are not inclined to change or alter their preconstructed worldview to suit your needs! Being viewed as a “doubter” or skeptic in a religious community can quickly get you on someone’s dodo list. It’s not the easiest way to “make friends and influence people.”
When I started recognizing my religious community’s culture and views of truth didn’t match what I was experiencing, I knew I’d be facing some tough choices going forward. I could stay in the prefab house of beliefs and practices and make the best of it, seek out a new prefab belief system with a ready-made community, or strike out on my own. Making such decisions requires navigating difficult, life-altering choices. I’ll share more on this in later essays.
Consequences to the second approach to spiritual health
The second approach to spiritual health—where the highest goal in life is to move deeper and deeper within to get in touch with one’s unique truth—can be likened to building a customized house, brick by brick, step by step.
Life is about self-discovery and self-expression. It’s about uncovering and manifesting one’s true inner nature in the world as perfectly as possible. This is the highest goal to aspire to in human life. Nothing more. Nothing less. This approach is often referred to as the path to reconnecting with one’s authentic true self; the path of pursuing one’s unique personal truth, a truth not necessarily meant for others.
The adoption of a predetermined “otherworldly” set of ideas and practices created by external religious authority is viewed as a stumbling block to genuine spirituality and personal growth. The idea there exists something transcendent or above the natural world, like “God’s divine purpose for creating human beings,” is viewed as irrelevant or unnecessary.
Instead of purchasing a ready-made house of beliefs, worldview and practices, the autonomous individual courageously designs, customizes, and constructs their own house, their own reality, suited to their own particular interests, needs, and concerns. This is the pursuit of the authentic true self with no interference from external authorities or societal pressures. The advantages to this approach to spiritual health are obvious, but also not without drawbacks.
A major challenge for those who take an autonomous approach to spiritual health is navigating the often-conflicting advice from a multitude of self-help groups, spiritual disciplines, books, therapists, and counselors.
Unlike individuals who seek guidance and insight in relationship with a divine, transcendent will, through religious authorities and sacred texts, and an accountable community of like-minded individuals, those who go it alone must create their own roadmap and signposts to chart a clear path forward.
Crafting one’s personalized spiritual path and roadmap can be an arduous task. It requires careful decision making in the absence of a unified, external authority or moral guide.
Professional map makers know their craft
Professional map makers are adept at the difficult task of data collection, analysis, design, and technology, to create maps that are accurate, educational, and pleasing to the eye. It’s what they do, and they do it well.
Learning to map out a plan to cultivate your spiritual health can be just as complex, because of the sheer number of available programs and alternative options promoted in the marketplace, all screaming for your attention and devotion.
The phenomenon of preferring eclectic individualized support over group cohesion and shared responsibility
In the United States, the self-help and personal development industry continues to grow. It’s expected to continue this trajectory, fueled by the focus on mental health, the current reports on the epidemic of loneliness, and the ever-present rumbling of social media outlets. Influencers abound, promoting their divergent views and programs. It can get confusing. In fact, pursuing the autonomous path to spiritual health can be a lonely, disquieting path.
Trying to connect with like-minded individuals who share your particular unique view of the truth and how to practice it might be difficult. If the spiritual but not religious individual ever considers getting involved with a spiritual or religious community, they can face unique obstacles.
This phenomenon is well covered in Linda Mercadante’s book, Belief Beyond Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but not Religious (2014). Conducting interviews with hundreds of individuals who see themselves as spiritual but not tied to any religion, she noted their eclectic approach to meaning making and personal growth over group identity, make it difficult to commit to a specific group dynamic over a long period of time.
Many spiritual but not religious individuals do not see group membership and cohesion as a necessary element to crafting an authentic true self. Keys to successful group cohesion like shared beliefs, mutual responsibility, and a common mission, are often seen as an impediment to individualized personal development. Instead, each individual is responsible to get in touch with their own unique truth and strive to live by that truth. This is a highly personalized process and does not require serious long-term commitment with a community of like-minded individuals.
This approach to spiritual health is best reflected by individuals who seek to master their own lives without the need for external authorities or religious doctrines. Each one brings their own unique truth to the table to share with others, and that’s to be celebrated and honored. Anything beyond this aim is superfluous.
Conclusion
Two different approaches to spiritual health result in two qualitatively different “lived experiences.” Each approach presents unique challenges and opportunities to cultivate one’s spiritual health. I’ve tried to illustrate it’s not whether one of the two approaches is “better,” but to show how each approach shapes and allows the individual to understand and experience “self,” in relation to others, the larger world, and beyond.
Reflection
When I think about the vast number of options individuals have to choose from when looking to adopt a viable worldview and life philosophy that suits their temperament, I start to feel like I need to take a chill pill and go lie down for an hour.
It’s like the time I went shopping at my local drug store for some toothpaste. As I stood there in the isle peering at three separate shelves, each twenty feet long, filled with different brands of toothpaste, I felt bewildered and confused. This is ridiculous, I said to myself, as stood there in the isle starting to feel dizzy while trying to decide which brand of toothpaste to buy.
Dam it! I cursed under my breath. I decided to count the number of brands and came up with the shocking number of thirty-seven separate companies vying for me to pull out my wallet and buy their brand—because it’s the best! Impatient, I grabbed two tubes of toothpaste off the shelf and hurried to the front of the store to pay and get out of there. I bought two tubes because I didn’t want to come back anytime soon. Obviously, this was before Amazon online shopping! But even Amazon online shopping can be a dizzying affair, right?
Complexity or simplicity when trying to unlock spiritual health?
Sometimes the simplest looking action involve layers of sophisticated techniques integrated together to produce the illusion of simplicity.
In my mid-forties, I decided to once again take up the sport of speed skating. (Mid-life crisis, maybe?) During the first practice at the indoor rink in Yonkers, New York, I stood mesmerized as the lead instructor came out of a turn on the quarter mile track like he’d been shot out of a sling shot, racing forward at lightning speed out of the turn into the straight away, with the ease of a mongoose that leaps away from the lightning-fast strike of a venomous snake.
Self-reflection exercise
Each weekly edition of Spiritual Health Magazine includes a self-reflective exercise. Before you do the exercise, we encourage taking some time to properly prepare yourself:
Alone, without interruption, give yourself a couple minutes of quiet time. Sit down in your favorite chair or place in the house, or outdoors. Take a couple of slow, gentle breaths in and out through your nose. (You can also breathe in and out through your mouth, instead of your nostrils, if that is more comfortable for you.) Keep your focus on your breathing.
As you inhale and exhale, try to feel and hear the air you take in and breathe out. If your mind starts to wander off, distracted by ruminating thoughts, or outside noise, gently bring your attention back to your breath. Just keep focused on your breathing. If you find it difficult to stay focused on your breath because your mind keeps wandering off, it’s okay. Simply refocus your attention on your breathing.
When you sense the time is right, with heartfelt sincerity, silently ask yourself: What do I feel or understand to be the meaning of my life? Why am I here on this earth?
Be ready to write down or record what comes up for you, if anything. If nothing comes up, that’s okay. Don’t judge anything that comes up. Sit calmly as you go through the exercise.
If you want to share about what happened for you during this exercise, I’d like to hear from you, and I will respond.
Thank you for reading my essay and I hope it enriches your life.
Until next week, here’s to your spiritual health!