Back in March, I wrote about my psychic reading experience, which helped me out of the ambivalence I was in.
There was another psychic fair on the weekend. Carrie was going to take people through a heart charka guided meditation, so I decided to go in for that, but I was early because I thought I would browse beforehand. It turns out I was a bit too early as there were all the same stores at the previous fair, so I decided to check out the workshops before Carrie. The schedule said a space-clearing workshop, so I thought, well, I’m here, so I’ll sit in and listen. It ended up being a Mediumship demonstration by Cath Leask. I sat in with an open mind, but what I loved about the demonstration was Cath’s vibe. Cath said that she doesn’t change herself for spirit and that spirituality is about being who you are, not who society thinks you should be.
This got me thinking…
People (myself included) often confuse spirituality with Religion, and when asked about it, the response is I’m not Religious.
According to the dictionary, Religion is “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.”
According to the dictionary, spirituality is “the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.”
Both involve believing in something bigger than yourself.
I was raised a Catholic, including my schooling, I even was an altar server, but I don’t think I ever truly believed in anything the Religion has to offer. I went because I had to because we went as a family until suddenly, we stopped, and no one in my family goes to Church anymore, not even at Christmas or Easter. (I believe in Santa, though)
The thing that I believe spirituality offers over Religion is, as Cath said, it’s about being who you are, not who others want or think you should be. I speak from the Catholic traditions I grew up with, as I don’t know enough about other Religions. But Religion does the opposite of allowing you to be who you are; there are rules and traditions that you must follow, and while they like to preach that “God loves everyone”, the Catholic beliefs are against same-sex relationships, sex before marriage and contraception because the only purpose of sex is to create life. These beliefs have helped make the cultural conditioning of sex a taboo and shameful topic rather than a human need. The rules of the Catholic Church force people to suppress who they are and even limit the freedom of people to choose their path and faith. You often hear of people shunned by their families for choosing to exit. The Religion they grew up with resulting in isolation which we know is directly related to depression.
Whatever you believe in is your choice and is determined by what aligns with your values.
If you are unsure of your values, here is a list from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, which I found to be a great book. He recommends choosing less than five core values to focus on.
Or you could try the VIA Character Strengths Survey link here. I’ve done this survey twice, once in the Science of Well-being course and secondly as part of one of my units in the undergrad certificate of community support at UTAS.
My top 5
04/05/2020
Kindness
Honesty
Fairness
Hope
Forgiveness
24/02/2022
Honesty
Kindness
Fairness
Love
Hope
I don’t think the values we choose right now are necessarily the ones that stick throughout our lifetime. We are constantly growing and changing, and our values will change with that.
What do you value?
Have you done the Character Strengths Survey before?
I think it’s essential to have the safety to be ourselves for our health and well-being.
I never truly believed in religion either, because it just didn’t make sense. But now not knowing happens to us after we die is a bit of a burden to carry and sometimes I wish I was religious.