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September 2008 
What is Spirituality?
Posted on Jul 6th, 2008
by 
Kristin
Kristin
I was reading a book recently (The Courage to Heal) that talked about spirituality, and how it might help a person to heal from trauma. This was contrasted against the traditional idea of organised religion (e.g. Christianity), with the following definition:
'A healing spirituality is the opposite of '...' alienation. It's a passion for life, a feeling of connection, of being part of the life around you. Many people experience this in nature, watching the ocean roll in, looking out over a vast prairie, walking in the desert. When you are truly intimate with another human being, when you are uplifted through singing, when you look at a child and feel wonder, you are in touch with something bigger than yourself. There is a life force that makes things grow, that makes thunderstorms and mountain ranges and perfect avacados. The fact that you can create a baby and give it birth, watch it roll over, then sit up, and then crawl, is a miracle of life. There's a part of everything living that wants to become itself - the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, the damaged human being into a whole one. And that's spirituality: staying in touch with the part of you that is choosing to heal, that wants to be healthy, integrated, fully alive.' ... 'It's the inner voice that you learn to trust again.'
'A healing spirituality is the opposite of '...' alienation. It's a passion for life, a feeling of connection, of being part of the life around you. Many people experience this in nature, watching the ocean roll in, looking out over a vast prairie, walking in the desert. When you are truly intimate with another human being, when you are uplifted through singing, when you look at a child and feel wonder, you are in touch with something bigger than yourself. There is a life force that makes things grow, that makes thunderstorms and mountain ranges and perfect avacados. The fact that you can create a baby and give it birth, watch it roll over, then sit up, and then crawl, is a miracle of life. There's a part of everything living that wants to become itself - the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, the damaged human being into a whole one. And that's spirituality: staying in touch with the part of you that is choosing to heal, that wants to be healthy, integrated, fully alive.' ... 'It's the inner voice that you learn to trust again.'
Access: Public
There is a lot of data supporting the validity of the type of spirituality you wrote about. It is the spirituality of the Mystic. In contrast, the “traditional idea of organized religion” is actually a less evolved type of spirituality, that of what I am calling in my writing, the Faithful. Various researchers have shown that people tend to grow from the Faithful type of religion, through a phase of questioning (which I am calling the Rational phase) and then onto the Mystic stage. Because the Mystic stage is more personal, something the person has worked out for themselves, as opposed to accepting the pat, pre-set answers of the religion of “the Faithful” Mystic religion would be more likely to help a person heal from trauma, now that you mention it. Also, Mystics are more likely to go through life wanting to approach the mysteries of their existence, as opposed to the Faithful who approach their faith because they want to escape the mysteries and instead need answers.
Margaret Johnston,
BeliefStagesandGrowth.com
Thanks Margaret - that's very interesting. I went through something like that myself, firstly 'trying' organised religion and finding that it didn't suit me, and that I didn't agree with some of the principals or the strictness of the rules; then not really questioning, but just doing my own individual, unnamed thing (varying form nothing at all to a personal spiritual relationship depending on what was happening in my life), and then something like what you call the Mystic phase.