The modern era of medicine has somehow shoved spirituality aside when coping with life’s challenges.
In the present, you’ll often find people saying that using one’s faith to combat stress is toxic positivity, citing that prayers won’t cure conditions like depression and anxiety. Indeed, spiritual prayers aren’t magical remedies to mental health conditions and other diseases, but research has found that they’re helpful still.
Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean religiousness.
It also involves the belief in a higher power. To some, it may mean having faith in a supreme being or feeling a connection with the rest of humanity and nature.
But nothing about spirituality involves disregarding science. For example, believing in the theory of evolution doesn’t make a Christian a sinner. Similarly, going to a doctor doesn’t make anyone of a specific religion faithless. Hence, when a faithful person promotes spirituality as a healthy way of coping with an illness, they’re not automatically suggesting that you should never consider medical procedures.
In light of these, we should deeply understand the effects of spirituality during trying times, especially with a pandemic affecting us. In this article, we’ll provide an in-depth definition of spirituality, how it relates to faith, and why it is essential in our lives.
What Is Spirituality?
Spirituality involves the belief in a higher power, either a god or an inter-connectedness with humanity and nature. A person is spiritual when they exhibit the following behaviors:
- Curiosity about complex topics such as suffering and life after death
- Deepening connections with other people
- Having compassion and empathy for other people
- Experiencing feelings of inter-connectedness
- Being awed and wonder-struck
- Seeking happiness beyond material possessions and external rewards
- Seeking meaning and purpose in life
- Desiring to make the world a better place
Not every person expresses spirituality in the same way.
Some only have spiritual experiences in their places of worship, while for others, it’s when they’re close to nature. That being the case, spirituality is broken down into different forms, including:
- Christianity
- Islam
- Hinduism
- Buddhism
- Judaism
- Sikhism
- New Age Spirituality
- Humanism
Other than those, cultural and indigenous practices also count as spirituality. They’re valuable to groups of people who have been colonized.
What Makes Spirituality Important?
With the spiritual behaviors listed above in mind, spirituality gives meaning to life from the reflections we make about our existence. That allows us to develop an explanation for our purpose, helping us achieve self-actualization, the highest level of psychological development as per Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
And because it involves faith, it gives us hope when everything seems to be falling apart.
In a time of crisis like COVID-19, expressing faith has implications for your well-being and health, as found by psychologists’ research. According to Kenneth Pargament, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at Bowling Green State University, people who used positive religious coping methods coped with crises better than those who struggled with their faith and other sacred matters.
Faith alone helps people deal with challenges by encouraging them through a hopeful lens. That enables them to see an opportunity in a tragedy. In turn, they can use this opportunity to grow closer to a higher power.
Religion also helps people find where they belong.
It doesn’t involve other people, as a sense of belonging can also manifest when listening to spiritual music, connecting with nature, or partaking in Christian newsgroups, among others.
Thus, spirituality relieves stress and inspires peace. When you connect to nature through meditation, for example, you are training your mind to relax and your spirit to exhibit serenity and other positive qualities. The effects of meditation and other contemplative practices are far-reaching, proven even to reduce health issues related to depression, cancer, or chronic pain.
When Spirituality Becomes Undermining
Religion, in particular, can have adverse effects when misinterpreted. For example, stressed-out people may blame it on God’s punishment, resulting in anger and a strained faith. But putting everything in God’s hands, including sufferings, isn’t helpful, either, because it abandons practicality and logic.
Christians may be taught to trust God and believe that He is in control. But in some situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s best to listen to our leaders. Leaving the house without wearing a mask, in the belief that God is protecting you, puts you at greater risk, no amount of faith can prevent.
Therefore, even if spirituality has been proven helpful in times of crisis, it doesn’t mean that we should rely solely on it to overcome life’s challenges.
You can be spiritual and practical at the same time. Taking medicines while praying for your healing doesn’t make you promote toxic positivity. So is believing that a higher power will heal the world from the pandemic.
