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Premise: a vital contributor to any family's nurturance level is the degree to which the family leaders value and promote members' spiritual growth. "Spiritual growth" means "developing innate human abilities to experience meaningful contact with a benign Supreme Being or Higher Power." Spirit comes from the Latin word meaning "to breathe." Personal spirituality is a unique mix of conscious (mental) awareness and beliefs ("faith") + unconscious "senses" + "mystical" mind-body states. The effects of spirituality range from harmful (inhibiting wholistic health and growth) to nurturing (promoting optimal health and growth). Persons and families may evolve unique ways to grow spiritually, like medita-tion, prayer, retreats, and experiences alone or in social organizations like churches. Religion, including the occult, is a man-made set of beliefs, symbols, rituals, revered texts, organizations, roles, and rules that may or may not promote true spiritual growth. Compulsive religious rituals can provide effective temporary self-medication (vs. healing) from unbearable inner pain. Because of childhood experiences and self-distraction from hyperactivity and stimulation in the outer world, some people discount, ignore, ridicule, and/or avoid personal spirituality. Folk wisdom and a growing body of research suggests that people valuing their own and others' spirituality and growth tend to have (a) more satisfying, healthy, stable lives, relationships, and families; and (b) more success at preventing and reducing psychological wounds than atheists ("there is no God") and agnostics ("I don't know or care if a Higher Power exists.") All 12 Projects in this divorce-prevention site implicitly encourage family adults to value and promote nurturing spiritual growth in their homes and lives. Project 1 proposes that most (all?) people have a natural personality subself specializing in spiritual awareness. It ranges from undeveloped to paralyzed to influential. more perspective / inspiration / video / clergy / close |
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