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        This is one of over 150 articles focused on building high-nurturance family relationships and preventing divorce. This introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs. replace, other qualified professional help.

        Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this - what do you need?

Faith is the daring of the soul
to go further than it can see
- William Newton Clark

        This two-page article invites you to reflect on and discuss a vital element of your and your family's wholistic health - your spirituality. We'll start with a "Status Check" to help you clarify your own stance on this element. Then we'll explore...

• a definition of spirituality;

• perspective on spirituality and human needs, including typical spiritual needs;

• common stages of spiritual growth;

• perspective on nurturing spirituality, and spiritual neglect, abuse, and addiction;

• premises about why some people "aren't very spiritual";

• why spirituality is relevant to your health, longevity, and family welfare; and...

• a closing status check.

This article is not about religion or adopting a particular belief system. It explores how per-sonal faith in and relationship with a benign Higher Power can promote personal healing, effective co-parenting, and nourishing family relationships.

        I write this as an ex-atheist who is learning to experience a Supreme Being as the core of my  recovery from a very low-nurturance childhood. My parents and grandparents were very wounded, unaware college graduates who weren't taught that spiritual awareness and development were essential for wholistic health and wellbeing.

        I'm a student of spirituality, not an authority. I offer these ideas to promote reflection, awareness, and discussion in your inner and outer families. Much of the content here comes from (a) listening to the 1,000+ people I've met as a teacher and family-systems therapist since 1981, (b) reading many teachers who have gone before, and from (c) my own spiritual journey and communion.

        Let's start with a vital question...

How Spiritual Are You?

        Premise: any person, like you, fits somewhere on a line between "very un-spiritual" and "very spiritual." If the line was divided 1 to 10, where would you rank your spirituality currently? ___  See what you learn about yourself from mulling the following statements. "T" = "I feel this is true," "F" = "I don't believe this," and "?" = "I'm not sure now, have no opinion, or don't care." Options:

• answer these with a number from 1 (true) to 5 (false);

• print this and use it as a discussion-starter with one or more family members; and/or...

• re-read this periodically to see if anything changes in you and/or others, over time.

1)  I can clearly define spirituality out loud now (T  F  ? _ )

2)  I can clearly describe the difference between spirituality and religion now. (T  F  ? _ )

3)  I believe without question that a Higher Power (a) is aware of me, (b) cares about me, and (c) guides my life directly and indirectly. (T  F  ? _ )

4)  I relate best to people with similar spiritual views to mine. (T  F  ? _ )

5)  People with different spiritual beliefs than mine are wrong. (T  F  ? _ )

6)  I (a) believe personal spirituality ranges between toxic to nourishing, and (b) I can clearly describe the difference.  (T  F  ? _ )

7)  I believe (a) responsible adults patiently encourage spiritual curiosity, awareness, and growth in minor kids; and that (b) not doing this is spiritual neglect. (T  F  ? _ )

8)  I believe prayer to a personal Higher Power is often effective. (T  F  ? _ )

9)  I believe nourishing (vs. toxic) spirituality is a vital part of personal and family wholistic health.  (T  F  ? _ )

10)  I can clearly describe the three conditions required for spiritual abuse. (T  F  ? _ )

11)  I know how to resolve serious family conflicts over spirituality and religion now, or I'm genuinely interested in learning how. (T  F  ? _ )

12)  I must help non-believers find and accept the spiritual Truth (T  F  ? _ )

13)  I believe it's impossible to know God without (a) studying a (or the) Holy Book or Scripture and (b) having a wiser person guide me in interpreting it. (T  F  ? _ )

14)  I'm convinced that some people and/or powers are truly evil, and that I must be constantly on guard against them. (T  F  ? _ )

15)  We have no serious spiritual problems in our multi-generational family now. (T  F  ? _ )

16)  My true Self is responding to this status check now. (T  F  ? _ )

        Now I'm aware that...

 

 

What Is "Spirituality"?

        Recorded history richly demonstrates the universality of belief in spirits - non-human entities that can affect persons and the environment. Get quiet and reflect: if a young teen asked you to define spirituality,  how would you respond? Try saying your answer out loud now.

        Did your response include "church" and/or the name of an organized religion? My experience is that many people casually confuse spirituality with religion - a human organization and code of moral and worship beliefs and rituals based on a hierarchy of officials and a venerated Holy or mystical scriptures like the Bible, Koran, Bhagavad-Gita, Talmud, Upanishads, or Buddhist Tipitaka.

        A religion has a name (Hindu, Christian, Muslim, animism, Wicca, Buddhism, Voodoo, Baha'i, Shinto...) while spirituality usually doesn't. Exception - some types of spirituality have distinguishing names, like Gnosticism. A pious or religious person or family may or may not be spiritual.

Spirituality refers to (a) the faith-based beliefs and (b) relationship a person has with some invisible "force/s" which may guide, intercede, comfort, and inspire him or her in calm and troubled times. Faith means "Trust based on subjective experience beyond any meaningful proof." By definition, spiritual "force" can only be described indirectly in metaphors, parables, and symbols.

        I believe it was Hugh Prather who observed metaphorically that unthinking people worship stained glass windows (religious dogma, scriptures, relics, and ritual) instead of the Light illuminating them (God).

        If spiritual beliefs and practices have been universal across cultures and ages, that implies something about...

Spirituality and Human Needs

        Premises - needs are physical, emotional, and/or spiritual discomforts. At least four factors may promote the primal human need for spiritual faith across all global cultures and millennia:

• daily life in a dangerous, unpredictable, uncontrollable, unexplainable world and cosmos; and...

• the terrifying, incomprehensible nothingness of death; and...

• the ceaseless inner and social struggle between love, charity, and good; and selfishness, cruelty, and evil; and...

• the reported and/or experienced reality of miracles.

The political, economic, and military power of faith-based religions also shapes personal and cultural spiritual beliefs and practices.

        A term often occurring in self-help and wholistic-health articles and programs is "spiritual growth." See how your definition of that compares with this premise...

What is "Spiritual Growth"?

        Premise - Every newborn child has the innate potential to develop personal spirituality. Between birth and death, every person - like you - goes through a unique, decades-long automatic process of increasing intellectual (mental) and sensory awareness. Common stages of this process include...

• forming initial ideas about living things, the world, "spirits," and "gods."

• beginning to form basic questions about life, health, relationships, "fate," and death; and encountering a range of different answers to them from family members, friends, mentors, and the media;

• deciding in an over-stimulating world whether or not to give priority to personal reflection and intentional spiritual exploration or not,

• gradually testing different answers for credibility as knowledge and personality develop, and evolving a set of stable personal beliefs (faith) about spirituality and religions; and...

• deciding on the credibility and utility of one or more religious scriptures in developing personal and family spirituality, and..

• re-examining personal spiritual beliefs in the light of (a) aging and (b) major traumas; and

• deciding if, how, and when to revise these beliefs, based on new perceptions and experiences; and...

• deciding if, how, and when to encourage kids and other adults to become aware of, and motivated to explore, this life-long developmental process.

        Would you edit this proposal of the normal spiritual-growth process? Some people equate spiritual growth with the slow, natural maturing of their soul. Some people equate their evolving true Self with their soul. There is no "right answer" or "truth" here - only evolving personal opinions and faith.

        An implication of this slow, natural process is that some people are more spiritually aware and mature (developed) than others, regardless of their age and education. Many believe that living simply in Nature promotes spiritual awareness and growth, and that hectic urban life hinders these. How do you feel about this? On a scale of one (very undeveloped) to ten (highly developed and mature), how would you rank your current spiritual growth? Would others who know you agree?

        Would you agree that the effects of spiritual attitudes and beliefs on persons, families, and society range from nourishing to harmful? Which describes the effects on you and your family? Here's some perspective...

Toxic vs. Nourishing Spirituality

        Let's define nourishing as "significantly helping a person meet their current primary mental + psychological + spiritual + physical needs." In contrast, anything that hinders a child or adult from filling their current primary needs is toxic.

        Would you agree that spiritual beliefs and practices can help or hinder the people in your home and family in filling their current needs? Toxic spirituality will lower a family's nurturance level and raise the odds of psychological wounding. Paradoxically, such wounds + unawareness will promote toxic spirituality. For more perspective on the effects of your spirituality or religion, see this worksheet.

        Have you met any people who describe significant positive or negative impacts of spirituality in their lives and families? There seems to be good reason for the slogan "the family that prays (shares spiritual faith) together stays together."

        There are at least three ways adults' spiritual beliefs, priorities, and practices can reduce your family's nurturance level: spiritual neglect, aggression and abuse, and addiction. Let's look briefly each of these:

Spiritual Neglect

        In a family context, neglect means "not taking responsibility for filling family members' needs effectively." Do you feel that children's' and adults' spiritual needs are an important part of their wholistic health? What are "spiritual needs"? How about the needs to...

• experience the calming, centering effect of quiet meditation and prayer;

• trust that a benign, attentive, caring spiritual Power offers wisdom and reliable guidance via a "still small voice within";

• find personal courage, serenity, and will to continue amidst major life stresses, including natural or human disasters, terminal illness, and death;

• experience the reassurance, fellowship, caring, and community that comes from sharing spiritual beliefs with other people; and the need to...

• perceive the inherent worth, beauty, dignity, and promise in every person, as a co-equal child of God.

        Can you think of other spiritual needs? How well filled are each of those needs in your life, so far? Notice that until a person experiences each of these needs, s/he cannot recognize and validate their existence and value. The universal phenomenon of (spiritual) rebirth, or awakening, testifies to the human capacity to experience these needs and value satisfying them. Do you know anyone who has awakened?

Ranking these needs as important in a child's development implies that caregivers share responsibility for valuing and identifying their and their kids' spiritual needs, and working to fill them together. Premise - scorning, ignoring, or minimizing this responsibility is spiritual neglect, ineffective co-parenting, and a probable sign of unawareness and false-self wounds.

        Such neglect leaves kids' discovery of a nourishing Higher Power to chance or to God. People with strong spiritual faith would liken this to ignoring a child's need to learn to read, problem-solve, or communicate. How important was it to the adults who raised you to nourish your - and their - spiritual needs? When the young people in your life are grown, how will they answer that question?

        A second way spirituality may impact your family's wholistic health and growth is...

Spiritual Aggression and Abuse

        Three conditions must be clearly present for behavior to qualify as abuse - otherwise it is aggression. Have you ever been abused? Have your subselves abused someone else? Do you have strong opinions about abuse and abusers?

        My clinical experience since 1981 is that well over half of typical co-parents in troubled and divorcing biofamilies and stepfamilies survived significant childhood neglect and abuse. Paradoxically, our (wounded, ignorant) society disapproves of - and passively condones these, and accepts them as normal. Irresponsible child conceptions and epidemic child neglect are irrefutable symptoms of the [wounds + unawareness] cycle that is silently crippling our society.

        Knowledgeable or intuitive observers can clearly identify true physical, verbal, and emotional abuses. Spiritual aggression and abuse can be much more subtle. Can you recognize it and its effects? I suggest that family adults' spiritual beliefs, values, and behaviors that encourage false-self development are abusive (vs. aggressive), because they can significantly harm vulnerable children who can't protect themselves.

        Consider this innocent prayer traditionally taught to young Western children:

"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

        Would an average four-year-old child know what a "soul" or "the Lord" is? Would s/he know that the odds of dying while sleeping are close to zero, unlike the European bubonic-plague era? Does this nightly prayer encourage a child to feel subliminally safe in their bed, home, and life? Thoughtlessly requiring a young child to believe in and repeat a prayer like this can be abusive.

        A more vivid example of spiritual abuse is a wounded, overwhelmed caregiver trying to get obedience by telling an impressionable child "You are going to burn forever in a lake of fire. Demons will torment you forever!" How about "God sees everything you do, think, and feel. If you're not a good child, (a stern, punishing) God will do (something unspeakably awful to you)!"

        Countless millions of people have learned to believe in the Christian/Hebrew Old Testament. It portrays a schizoid God who lovingly provides for his children unless they disobey Him - i.e. conditional love.

        Puritans and other sects were taught to be "God fearing," which increased their personal and social anxieties and bigotry vs. their serenity and harmony. The American Salem witch trials traumatized many New England families and communities - self-appointed officials hysterically judging innocent women to be controlled by Satan (a spirit) and maliciously "witching" others. American Navajo children were taught to fear evil "skinwalkers" - witches. Most (all?) cultures have similar malevolent spiritual entities that scare young kids.

        If the Christian concept of "original sin" is over-emphasized or not responsibly explained, it can promote significant shame, guilts, and anxiety in impressionable girls and boys. So can the Buddhist and Hindu concepts of Karma and dharma. Beliefs like these can transcend logic, promote false-self formation and dominance, and can shape adults' lives for decades.

        Over-promoting the concept of "spiritual warfare" with malevolent, insidious demons led by the Devil, and some occult beliefs and practices, can create a toxic environment by significantly disturbing adults' and kids' inner-family security, harmony, and serenity.

        Sternly instructing children that one religion or spiritual view is "the True Way" and that "unbelievers" must be converted, pitied, scorned, shunned, or killed, is undeniably abusive and toxic. Your childhood experiences and current environment may cause your ruling subselves to disagree. In my experience, spiritual rigidity and bigotry (superiority) is a sure sign of significant unawareness, false-self wounds, and denials.

        Do you agree that spiritual aggression and abuse is just as real and harmful as physical, verbal, and emotional abuse? Do you know anyone who has suffered spiritual abuse? Can you describe its effects?

        The third form of toxic spirituality is...

Spiritual Addiction

        True addictions are progressive and life-shortening. A common addiction is compulsively seeking an emotional state, like rage (power), sexual arousal, and spiritual-religious ecstasy. Details vary widely, but the theme is constant: people (i.e. their false selves) use these compulsively to numb or distract from intolerable inner pain.

        Does anyone in your family use spiritual/religious beliefs and activities to self-medicate? Do you? Episcopalian priest Leo Booth's thought-provoking book "When God Becomes a Drug - breaking the chains of religious addiction and abuse" is a compelling first-person description of spiritual/religious addiction, typical effects, and effective recovery from it.

        Note the distinction between religious zealotry or fanaticism and spiritual obsession. Current media headlines focus on the violent proclamations and actions of some Muslim fanatics. Other headlines focus us on the toxic or bizarre beliefs and behaviors of religious cults in America and other cultures. 

        Bottom line: some people use spirituality to nourish - i.e. to build awareness, wisdom, patience, confidence, hope, compassion, and love. Others use spirituality in a way that harms themselves and/or others, like neglect, abuse and addiction. Still other people seem indifferent, and do neither of these.

        If average people have spiritual needs...

Why Do Some People Reject Spiritual Faith?

      Think of the people you know best, starting with yourself. How spiritual (vs. religious, devout, or pious) would you say each one is? Answering means you have some criteria for "being spiritual." Have you ever explored why some people have firm, thoughtful spiritual faith, and others feel no interest in developing that?

        Why are some people "believers," and others are agnostics ("I don't know if there's a God") or atheists ("There is no such thing as 'God', and 'spirituality' is con and a crutch.")?

      Premises - (a) all people have spiritual needs (above); and (b) in traumatic times, spiritual faith can reduce local fears, confusion, guilt, shame, and emotional overwhelm. If so, then something blocks some people from developing a meaningful spiritual faith and encouraging their kids to do the same.

        Do you have faith (trust) that the sun will rise tomorrow? That your body is composed of atoms which you'll never see? That you have a soul or spirit? That evil or angels exist? When you were one year old, did you have those faiths? Six years old? Thirteen? How and when did you grow such assumptions? Think of the most spiritual person you know. Can they say when and where they "got" their faith in a Higher Power?

        I suspect our core beliefs come from two sources:

• unconsciously adopting the faith of one or more people we trust and admire ("My grandfather believed so strongly in God and an afterlife it never occurred to me to question that."); and...

• direct experience -  "I felt a protective Presence as I went into surgery, and I knew I was going to be OK." Aging and facing certain death often invites spiritual wondering.

If this is so, then people who have little or no nourishing spiritual faith were probably raised by adults without faith, and/or haven't had any significant spiritual experiences. If you know people who "aren't spiritual," see if these premises hold true.

        Spiritual indifference or skepticism can come from a low-nurturance childhood. Significantly- wounded adults tend to be skeptical, cynical, numb, pessimistic, distorted, distrustful, distracted, biased, closed to other ideas, indifferent, ("Who cares?"), and/or rigid in spiritual values and beliefs.

        That may cause vulnerable young kids to (a) develop similar "faithless" attitudes, or to (b) form a secret spiritual faith as a way to survive daily fears and pain. Which of these describes you?

        Many wounded adults learned to survive low-nurturance early years by numbing their emotions, and developing constant "mind chatter" (inner-family hubbub). These make it hard or impossible to experience spiritual needs and realities, and to accept that inner peace is real, healthy, and personally attainable.

The popularity of various "retreats" in our culture suggests that for most of us, meaningful spiritual awareness depends on periods of undistracted inner and outer quiet and contemplation. That's a rare condition in typical low-nurturance homes and environments. How common is it in your home now? What would your kids say?

        Related factors that probably hinder spiritual awareness and growth in your home/s are...

• the relentless busy-ness of American lives and communities, and...

• the ceaseless stimulation and distraction from TV, PCs, pagers, phones, electronic games, CD players, and media articles and ads.

       Harried or wounded co-parents who regularly model, condone, or encourage kids to spend hours focusing on these distractions don't provide incentive for meditation and spiritual curiosity and awareness.  Balancing activities and undistracted meditation is the key - and true Selves are naturally adept at providing such balance in a dynamic world. Family Project 12 focuses on helping your family members learn to value maintaining four levels of balance...

        How do these ideas compare to your views on why some people have little or no spiritual faith? Perhaps more to the point...

Continue with ideas on why spirituality is relevant to you and the people you care about. Do you need a break first?
 

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Updated June 25, 2008