what is spirituality

What Is Spirituality?

Spirituality is the broad concept of a belief in something beyond the self. It may involve religious traditions centering on the belief in a higher power, but it can also involve a holistic belief in an individual connection to others and to the world as a whole.

Spirituality is not a single path or belief system. There are many ways to experience spirituality and the benefits of a spiritual experience. For some people, this might involve the belief in a higher power or a specific religious practice.

ossessions or other external rewards

Seeking meaning and purpose

Wanting to make the world a better place

Not everyone experiences or expresses spirituality in the same way. Some people may seek spiritual experiences in every aspect of their lives, while others may be more likely to have these feelings under specific conditions or in certain locations. For example, some people may be more likely to have spiritual experiences in churches or other religious temples, while some might have these feelings when they out enjoying nature.

Types of Spirituality

There are many different types of spirituality, ranging from religious traditions to more secular approaches. Some of the major forms of spirituality include:

1. Buddhism

2.Christianity

3.Hinduism

4.Humanism

5.Islam

6.Judaism

7.New age spirituality

8.Sikhism

It is important to remember that there are many other spiritual traditions that exist throughout the world, including traditional African and Indigenous spiritual practices. Such spiritual practices can be particularly important to groups of people who have been subjected to the effects of colonialism

Impact of Spirituality

While specific spiritual views are a matter of faith, research has demonstrated some of the benefits of spirituality and spiritual activity. The results may surprise no one who has found comfort in their religious or spiritual views, but they are definitely noteworthy in that they demonstrate in a scientific way that these activities do have benefits for many people.

The following are a few more of the many positive findings related to spirituality and its influence on physical and mental health:

Research has shown that religion and spirituality can help people cope with the effects of everyday stress. One study found that everyday spiritual experiences helped older adults better cope with negative feelings and enhanced positive feelings.2
Research shows that older women are more grateful to God than older men, and they receive greater stress-buffering health effects due to this gratitude.3
According to research, those with an intrinsic religious orientation, regardless of gender, exhibited less physiological reactivity toward stress than those with an extrinsic religious orientation.4 Those who were intrinsically oriented dedicated their lives to God or a "higher power," while the extrinsically oriented ones used religion for external ends like making friends or increasing community social standing.

People who feel comfortable and comforted using spirituality as a coping mechanism for stress can rest assured that there's even more evidence that this is a good idea for them. Prayer works for young and old alike. Prayer and spirituality have been linked to:

Better health
Greater psychological well-being
Less depression5
Less hypertension
Less stress, even during difficult times6
More positive feelings
Superior ability to handle stress

Whether you are rediscovering a forgotten spiritual path, reinforcing your commitment to an already well-established one, or seeking a new source of spiritual fulfillment, exploring your spiritual side may help improve your well-being.

eling empathy, and helping others are important aspects of spirituality.

Meditate: Try spending 10 to 15 minutes each morning engaged in some form of meditation.

Practice gratitude: Start a gratitude journal and record what you are grateful for each day. This can be a great reminder of what is most important to you and what brings you the greatest happiness.

Try mindfulness: By becoming more mindful, you can become more aware and appreciative of the present. Mindfulness encourages you to be less judgmental (both of yourself and others) and focus more on the present moment rather than dwelling on the past or future.

Table of Contents

What Is Spirituality?

Signs

Types

Uses

Impact

What Is Spirituality?

Spirituality offers a worldview that suggests there is more to life than just what people experience on a sensory and physical level.

Instead, it suggests that there is something greater that connects all beings to each other and to the universe itself. It also proposes that there is ongoing existence after death and strives to answer questions about the meaning of life, how people are connected to each other, truths about the universe, and other mysteries of human existence.

Spirituality and religious activity have been a source of comfort and relief from stress for multitudes of people. While people use many different religions and paths to find God or to express their spirituality, research has shown that those who are more religious or spiritual and use their spirituality to cope with challenges in life experience many benefits to their health and well-being.1

Signs of Spirituality

For others, it may involve experiencing a sense of connection to a higher state or a sense of inter-connectedness with the rest of humanity and nature. Some signs of spirituality can include:

Asking deep questions about topics such as suffering and what happens after death

Deepening connections with other people

Experiencing compassion and empathy for others

Experiencing feelings of interconnectedness

Feelings of awe and wonder

Seeking happiness beyond material possessions or other external rewards

Seeking meaning and purpose

Wanting to make the world a better place

Types of Spirituality

There are many different types of spirituality, ranging from religious traditions to more secular approaches. Some of the major forms of spirituality include:

Buddhism

Christianity

Hinduism

Humanism

Islam

Judaism

New age spirituality

Sikhism

Uses

There are a number of different reasons why people may turn to spirituality, including but not limited to:

To find purpose and meaning: Exploring spirituality can help people find answers to questions they have about philosophical questions such as "what is the meaning of life?" and "what purpose does my life serve?"

To cope with feelings of stress, depression, and anxiety: Spiritual experiences can be helpful when coping with the stresses of life.

To restore hope and optimism: Spirituality can help people develop a more hopeful outlook on life.

To find a sense of community and support: Because spiritual traditions often involve organized religions or groups, becoming a part of such a group can serve as an important source of social support.

Impact of Spirituality

The following are a few more of the many positive findings related to spirituality and its influence on physical and mental health:

Research has shown that religion and spirituality can help people cope with the effects of everyday stress. One study found that everyday spiritual experiences helped older adults better cope with negative feelings and enhanced positive feelings.2

Research shows that older women are more grateful to God than older men, and they receive greater stress-buffering health effects due to this gratitude.3

According to research, those with an intrinsic religious orientation, regardless of gender, exhibited less physiological reactivity toward stress than those with an extrinsic religious orientation.4 Those who were intrinsically oriented dedicated their lives to God or a "higher power," while the extrinsically oriented ones used religion for external ends like making friends or increasing community social standing.

This, along with other research, demonstrates that there may be tangible and lasting benefits to maintaining involvement with a spiritual community. This involvement, along with the gratitude that can accompany spirituality, can be a buffer against stress and is linked to greater levels of physical health.

Dedication to God or a "higher power" translated into less stress reactivity, greater feelings of well-being, and ultimately even a decreased fear of death.

Better health

Greater psychological well-being

Less depression5

Less hypertension

Less stress, even during difficult times6

More positive feelings

Superior ability to handle stress

Tips

Spirituality is a very personal experience, and everyone’s spiritual path may be unique. Research shows, however, that some spiritual stress relief strategies have been helpful to many, regardless of faith.7 Some things you can do to start exploring spirituality include:

Pay attention to how you are feeling: Part of embracing spirituality means also embracing what it means to be human, both the good and the bad.

Focus on others: Opening your heart, feeling empathy, and helping others are important aspects of spirituality.

Meditate: Try spending 10 to 15 minutes each morning engaged in some form of meditation.

Practice gratitude: Start a gratitude journal and record what you are grateful for each day. This can be a great reminder of what is most important to you and what brings you the greatest happiness.

How to Make Mindfulness Your Way of Life

Potential Pitfalls

One potential pitfall of spirituality is a phenomenon known as spiritual bypassing. This involves a tendency to use spirituality as a way to avoid or sidestep problems, emotions, or conflicts.

For example, rather than apologizing for some type of emotional wound you have caused someone else, you might bypass the problem by simply excusing it and saying that "everything happens for a reason" or suggesting that the other person just needs to "focus on the positive."

Spirituality can enrich your life and lead to a number of benefits, but it is important to be cautious to not let spiritual ideals lead to pitfalls such as dogmatism or a reason to ignore the needs of others.

Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion.[1] However, religion is a highly contested term with scholars such as Russell McCutcheon arguing that the term "religion" is used as a way to name a "seemingly distinct domain of diverse items of human activity and production".[4] The field of religious studies cannot even agree on one definition for religion and since spirituality overlaps with it in many ways it is difficult to reach a consensus for a definition for spirituality as well.[5][note 1]

The specific expression was used in several scholarly works, including an anthropological paper in 1960[6] and in Zinnbauer et al.'s seminal paper "Religiousness and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy".[7] SBNR as a movement in America was delineated by author Sven Erlandson in his 2000 book Spiritual but not Religious.[8][9][10] The phenomenon possibly started to emerge as a result of a new Romantic movement that began in the 1960s, whereas the relationship between the two has been remotely linked to William James' definition of religious experience, which he defines as the "feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine."[11] Romantic movements tend to lean away from traditional religion and resemble spiritual movements in their endorsement of mystical, unorthodox, and exotic ways.[12] Owen Thomas also states that the ambiguity and lack of structure present in Romantic movements are also present within spiritual movements.

According to a study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2012, the number of Americans who do not identify with any religion has increased from 15% in 2007 to 20% in 2012, and this number continues to grow. One fifth of the US public and a third of adults under the age of 30 are reportedly unaffiliated with any religion but identify as being spiritual in some way. Of these religiously unaffiliated Americans, 37% classify themselves as spiritual but not religious, while 68% say they do believe in God, and 58% feel a deep connection to the Earth.[13]

Increased popular and scholarly attention to "spirituality" by scholars like Pargament has been related to sociocultural trends towards deinstitutionalization, individualization, and globalization.[14]

Generational replacement has been understood as a significant factor of the growth of religiously unaffiliated individuals. Significant differences were found between the percentage of those considered younger Millennials (born 1990–1994) as compared with Generation Xers (born 1965–1980), with 34% and 21% reporting to be religiously unaffiliated, respectively.[13]

Demographically, research has found that the religiously unaffiliated population is younger, predominately male, and 35% are between the ages of 18 and 29. Conversely, only 8% of religiously unaffiliated individuals are 65 and older. Among those unaffiliated with organized religion as a whole, 56% are men and 44% are women.[13]

Another possible explanation for the emergence of SBNR is linguistic. Owen Thomas highlights the fact that spirituality movements tend to be localized to English and North American cultures. The meaning of the term "spirit" is more narrow in English than that of other languages, referring to all of the uniquely human capacities and cultural functions.

Yet, according to Siobhan Chandler, to appreciate the "god within" is not a twentieth century notion with its roots in 1960s counter culture or 1980s New Age, but spirituality is a concept that has pervaded all of history.

According to Linda Mercadante, the concept of religion is a social construct, since in other eras, religion, culture, and even national identity were often inseparable. And as for spirituality, this is an old concept with a new usage. Previous to today’s era, what people today call spirituality was often called piety.Mercadante sees religion as a complex adaptive network of myths, symbols, rituals and concepts that simultaneously figure patterns of feeling, thinking, and acting and disrupt stable structures of meaning and purpose. When understood in that way, religion not only involves ideas and practices that are manifestly religious but also includes a broad range of cultural phenomena not ordinarily associated with religion. Many people use spirituality to refer to their interior life of faith and religion to mean the necessary communal and/or organizational part. Mercadante sees both spirituality and religion as consisting of four basic components: beliefs, desire, rituals, and behavioural expectations, but across the field of Religious Studies the definitions vary.

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