What One Belief Hinders Spirituality The Most?
I am convinced we all need to be more spiritual minded if we are going to leave this world a better place than when we came with fewer regrets. Most think it is important to be more physically healthy. I can’t claim more successes than failures eating healthy, but such a focus keeps me striving for my goals. Physical health is an open conversation, but for some reason discussing our spiritual health is taboo. Why is it so difficult to discuss and encourage one another about our spirituality which is simply striving to be more the person we desire to be deep down?
Who doesn’t wish to treat their partner, friends, and co-workers better than we do sometimes or at least treat them more like we want to be treated. Avoid unnecessary guilt trips. Some people are just plain difficult people. We don’t always need to accept or look the other way from their misbehaviors. If you treat other people like dirt and I have any kind of relationship with you, I am going to tell you the truth. It is risky sometimes but “no risk, no gain.” I hope if you see that I have a blind eye toward mistreating others that you will let me know in a way you would want someone to tell you the same thing.
One of the hardest relationships to be the kind of person you want to be is in marriage which has some unique challenges. We interact more behind closed doors where others can’t see our behaviors than in most other relationships. Our partner often is more dependent on us such as rearing children that makes just walking away difficult. But, most of us didn’t marry the devil and we need to figure out how to treat our partners like we do our best friends. The one main belief that kills marriages is the same belief that kills pursuit of spirituality.
Before I challenge you to change such a belief, let me mention certain things we discuss instead of our spiritual health. I am more familiar with the religion of Christianity and how such folks make conversations and encouragements about spirituality more difficult. We talk about religious stuff. We talk about the need to go to church. We talk about that you need to believe what the Bible says or you can’t really be a spiritual person. If you have read the Bible lately, it does have say some pretty weird stuff that is hard to reconcile with a loving God. God, like any loving parent, doesn’t require any traditions, rituals, or beliefs to have a relationship.
The one main belief that kills discussions about spirituality, for which I was and sometimes still am guilty of, is “I am right and you are wrong.” Guess what! I may be right, you may be right, we may both be wrong. Now, if you think it is right to behead and kill people because they don’t share your personal beliefs about God, you are wrong! Many good, spiritual minded people assume they need to convert their friends to their beliefs in order to be accepted by God. Stop! I do think people best become more focused on their spiritual health if they desire to be more the person they want to be. I do think there are certain views of God that can be empowering in such a journey, but there are no sacred beliefs you must sign up for to begin the journey of being more the person you want to be.