Values: Spirituality
In this short series of articles, I will articulate my own experiences with the VIA Character Strengths survey results. I look at my signature strengths and how they impact my life on a daily basis and on into the future. Here’s the first one.
Spirituality
I grew up in a family that was actively involved in a local church community. I mean we were super actively involved. As I grew up, though, I realised that I never quite fit in the churchy scene. I loved certain things about it but I also found myself veering away from it in certain areas.
I gravitated more and more toward the mystical side of Christianity, but never to the institutionalised versions of that. I found that my life could have a rich spiritual interior aspect to it that went beyond the regular attending church services, doing the everyday boring Bible studies, and being satisfied with what anyone told me I had to be satisfied with to be a good Christian boy. I even got sick of the good Christian boy bit. It seemed too fraught with dangers. So I let myself move toward a highly ethical way of living that learnt to impose not rules and guilt but love and mercy.
My professional life moved more and more toward the contemplative and I found the wonders of stretching and meditation through movement, I grew in my love of martial arts and I began to have more profound spiritual experiences through movement. I still read and meditate on the Bible but it is a deeply visceral, expressive experience now — steeped in academic study but study that must find its way into a spiritually rich experience that changes my life and the lives of those around me. Without changing lives for good the spiritual seems less spiritual.
I have learned that my beliefs about and relationship with God are the progenitors of my behaviour. From my beliefs, I am driven to behave. Whatever I do, these beliefs, both intentionally and unintentionally, inform how I act. They serve as a compass for me at all times.
I find nature, light, music and visually dynamic art to be immersive and to grant me transcendent experiences and often, movie and musical are the ultimate expression of that for me. Movement and words convey a sense of what is truly spiritual about my world. They are sacred. I love to walk at night when the moon and the stars are out and just stand and enjoy them. Sunset on an Australian farm is one of the most spiritual experiences I know, as is wielding a well balanced sword. Slowing to a halt and feeling the texture of leaves, feeling the ground under my feet and helping others to experience those things are all an integral part of my life.
I always return to my spiritual roots and my spiritual experience of those roots. I have tried to relieve myself of them through reasoning and continue to fail at that — the rich spiritual world of my interior self is always a part of me and always one of the highest values I possess. It’s second only to creativity, and I always prefer to express my spirituality creatively.
The transcendent experience is, for me, one of the most sacred, delightful and life-giving things I can journey through. I believe that the transcendent eperience is one of the most beautiful gifts I can give to someone, as it leads to a place of openness to change: whether through laughter, calm, forgiveness, wonder or connection.
Benefits
When working with clients, this high spirituality strength helps me to respect their own spiritual journey. The sacred experiences of each inidividual are just that — sacred — and for them to discover the Divine through their own life experience is important.
When things are really tough, I have something to understand my world through. In the midst of my toughest times, I have found my transcendent experiences to be some of the most important things to pull me through.
Through my various health concerns, I have discovered a way forward by immersing myself more completely and deliberately into those experiences, moments and places that are sacred. From them, I draw immense emotional and physical health. They are a fount of life and well-being to me. I now see my spirituality not as something intangible and ephemeral, not as something distant or as something belonging solely to the other side of death. Rather, I understand my spirituality as a tangible part of my physiological self. I am spiritual and I am physical and the two are both part of me, both interdependent upon each other, both feeding into each other.
I only have fullness of life spiritually because I have fullness of life physically. And by pursuing my spiritual life, I experience release and health physically. There is no disconnect. Both are part of the same essential being. Me.
My way of seeing spirituality enables me to see value in my children and the unique ways they see the world. I can appreciate the different expressions of spiritual life in others and offer them value and worth through it all.
I can have immense compassion on others and seek mercy for them because of my spiritual beliefs. Being spiritual is so deeply entrenched in compasison and mercy. Through them I learn to have mercy on myself and can therefore have mercy on others. More to the point, I can help others to have mercy on themselves, for to me, that is one of the highest purposes in life. For this reason, I am a health practitioner, seeking to help others discover health for themselves, in ways that are meaningful and life changing for them.
My focus on understanding spirituality means that I am willing to spend immense amounts of energy and time thinking deeply about issues I see as spiritually important. I seek spiritual truths and understandings with relentless passion and analysis. My beliefs are so important to me that I am willing to suspend them if they don’t make sense, while being unwilling to give them up without solid evidence that it is best.
I am immensely capable of holding on to mystery and contradiction. I can hold two dissimilar and apparently opposing views in my mind at once and see the benefits of two oppsing views without judgment. I can make honest statements — assertions — about things as I see them because I am willing to embrace the mysterious contradictions in order to discover the value within. Questions about deep things don’t bother me and I am hard to shock. Me questioning something does not mean I am abandoning it. It just means I am willing to explore it honestly.
My spirituality helps me see the world through softer eyes and allows me to experience that world through deeply visceral means.
Disadvantages
I would rather spend time in deep contemplation than do house work. Professional work can easily come second to sitting in silence thinking about the transcendent. I can spend hours immersed in trying to understand a spiritual or theological concept that other people think is a stupid waste of time.
When I am caught in a deep train of thought, it often alienates me from other people with similar beliefs. This is especially true of church friends. They have great difficulty following some of my thought and seem unwilling to engage in things so deeply and honestly. This frustrates me and angers me because spirituality expressed in this way is such an important thing to me — it is one of my highest values!
I can speak very passionately about things and in ways that drive other people away. I often offend and when I’m passionately embroiled in that spiritual thing of importance, I tend to not care what I say to other people — this experience, this idea, this truth is so immensely important that other people’s short sightedness sickens, maddens and frustrates me (whether they are actually short-sighted or not is an entirely different question).
People can often see my questioning and seeking the interface of physical and spiritual as dangerous. Church-going people worry that I’ve become a heretic or am heading down a pathway of eternal damnation. This means that the community I believe I should be a healthy part of rejects me because they so lightly reject my questions and my experience of the spiritual. It’s hard to be part of community that you value when that comunity doesn’t value your own values.
My bigger dreams tend to revolve around having a living space that is in the bush, with lots of land and plenty of opportunities to sit and be. I dream of having a commercial retreat centre where people can have deeply physical and spiritual experiences, growing in contemplation, personal insight and physical health and fitness, all as part of the same spiritual journey. The problem is that this is such a big desire but it is currently beyond me. So I can become quite frustrated because I don’t see how I could possibly have that dream come true.
Finally, in order to survive this world, I require an immense amount of time in contemaplation and experiencing the sacred. I must recharge my batteries and to do so means I am not working or doing housework or administrative tasks. This causes others to think me lazy or selfish. However, when I don’t spend immense time in those practises, I spiral out of health and into a place of incapacity. So I find that my deep need for spiritual life runs counter to what society values and what I must do to survive in that society. I feel alone. I feel unable to thrive in that world. So to survive and to thrive, I must spend more time in spiritual contemplation and practise. Then I am able to survive but I am unable to do as much work as other people.
Practicalities
I find ways to express my spirituality outside of normal life. I go to the gym early in the morning, sometimes at 4am, before the world is awake. I can then spend time in meditation afterwards, walking slowly home and experiencing the sacred motion of walking and the sacred textures of nature.
I am intentional in my spiritual practise. Time is made to contemplate, meditate and deeply study the things that matter. I will take time out to meditate at the expense of other people, sometimes, because I know that then I can give them even more energy and effort as a result. When it is time to practise spiritual disciplines, I will take time out from other people or activities without compromise.
The timer on my phone is my friend. When I have a meditation session, I set the timer and obey it when it goes off. I only meditate for a set time. If I have fifteen minutes, I set the timer for ten and turn on aeroplane mode, so that no phone calls or messages can get through. During that time, I only focus on the task at hand. There is no need to feel guilt because I know that this time is meant to be here and it will finish soon. So I can more fully immerse myself in it.
I take time out whenever I can throughout the day — 20 seconds feeling my breath in silence or watching leaves sway in the wind can be enough to keep me going.
I also have an online space where I can express myself theologically. It is my website with my words on it, expressed in the way I want to. It is not someone else’s place, design or ideas. It is immensely safe for me.
I also take opportunity to do some lay preaching, wherein I exercise the most important aspects of my spirituality. I study deeply for those messages, getting deep into what I think the Bible says. I don’t compromise and I try desperately to not allow my previous experiences, beliefs or teachings get in the way of discovering what I think the text says. Really says. And then I try to say those things in ways that are meaningful and moving for my audience.
There is a space in my house, actually a bungalow, that has a small room where I have a comfortable wingbacked reading chair. It is like my own little chapel. This space is sacred. It is divine. It exists purely for contemplation, reflection, meditation and spiritual growth. Here I can be honest, transparent, I can weep, I can laugh, I sit in silence or ask the deep and heavy questions of life. It is my space.
Finally, I ride my motor bike and do exercise that is meaningful to me and helps me to be healthy in my spirituality. These two things are an important part of my spiritual experience because when I am there, I can be nowhere else. My mind is so completely present and uninterrupted. In my times of exercise, lifting heavy things, stretching and mobilising my body and in my times of riding the motor bike, I discover connection and can pray, have insight and be changed.
Maybe I can help others be changed also.
Thanks for reading my article. I really appreciate it when people take the time out to read my material. So thank you. Stumac.
