Ep. 95 - Spirituality

Spirituality.  

What does that word mean to you?  

Today - we're going to dig into spirituality a little bit.  

Why?  

I am actively building the life of my dreams through consistent goal setting utilizing (7) categories:

• financial
• physical
• personal development
• family
• spiritual
• social
• career

Last week, we covered financial and physical...

...Monday we talked personal development (Finding Your Rudder)...

...Tuesday we talked family (Multigenerational Families)

Today we are talking spiritual, and tomorrow we're talking social.

We'll round out the week on Friday with an episode on career / work life.

• Episode 9 - Spirituality 2.0; recorded October 9, 2020

Spirituality - Wikipedia

Spirituality

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/spirituality

Spirituality means different things to different people. For some, it's primarily about a belief in God and active participation in organized religion. For others, it's about non-religious experiences that help them get in touch with their spiritual selves through quiet reflection, time in nature, private prayer, yoga, or meditation.

Many people identify as spiritual but not religious: With a few exceptions, the percentage of adults who identify as religious in many industrialized countries is declining, while remaining generally high in less developed nations. Even as religious affiliation decreases, though, a sense of spiritual identification could remain steady or even increase.

The Benefits of a Spiritual Life

• Are spiritual people more generous?
• Are spiritual people less depressed?

The Search for Meaning 

An instinct toward spirituality appears to be deeply ingrained in humans. We can't help but ask big questions: Research finds that even declared religious skeptics can't stifle a sense that there is something greater than the physical world they see.

As the brain processes sensory experiences, it naturally looks for patterns—and our conscious selves often seek meaning in those patterns. This can lead to the phenomenon known as "cognitive dissonance," which describes how, once one believes in something, one is strongly inclined to try to explain away anything that conflicts with it. Cognitive dissonance is not unique to religion or spirituality, but often occurs in the context of such beliefs.

• Trying to find meaning in life

First through asking questions such as:

• Who am I and what am I doing here?

Lift yourself up by surrounding yourself with greatness

• Why do people believe in God?
• Do spiritual experiences affect the brain?

  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/spirituality

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Rituality. What does that word mean to you? Rituality. Well, today we are going to dig into that word just a little bit. It's a cold morning this morning. Five degrees out early. And I'm not sure if that comes through on the microphone, but the way my truck started indicates to me that it is not much warmer than that. On this Wednesday morning, February 10th, 2021, I'd like to welcome you to the 95th episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. This is a show where we focus on building the lives of our dreams. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. And today, the title of today's show is simply spirituality. So why? Why are we talking spirituality today? Well, for those who are new to the show, I am actively building the life of my dreams through consistent goal setting, utilizing seven categories: financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. Bear with me while I drive for a little bit and heat up the truck because, like I said, it's chilly. Last week we covered financial and physical, and Monday we talked about personal development with the episode Finding Your Rudder. Tuesday we talked about family with an episode on multi-generational families, and today we're talking about spiritual stuff. And tomorrow we will be diving into social while rounding out the week on Friday with an episode on career and work life. So as I was thinking about what to talk about this morning and where to go in the spiritual realm, it dawned on me that we haven't really touched on or recorded anything in that realm since October 9th, 2020, when I recorded episode number nine, spirituality 2.0, and I gave some background and some insight over the course of two episodes on my own experiences with spirituality. So that leaves us with this topic of spirituality and the question of what are we gonna talk about today? So let's look at that word before we talk about anything. Let's look at the word spirituality. Now the Wikipedia definition of spirituality is this. So I went to dig a little deeper to try and uncover some things that I could talk about. Ironically, uh my way to church. I am actively serving as the treasurer of a local church, and this morning I am ahead of that way to sign checks and also dropped something off of the post office. So the first article that I pulled up or came to or in the search results of my search engine of choice was an article by Psychology Today titled Spirituality. And it was it's a good article. It's a good article in psychology today, and I've linked to all the past episodes I've mentioned, I've linked to this article. Everything is in the show notes, so I'd encourage you to go and check it out. Now, I am going to read some of this article because it is indeed so good. Now, I turned down the heater, so hopefully you guys can hear me a little bit better. Spirituality means different things to different people. For some, it's primarily about a belief in God, an active participation in organized religion. For others, it's about non-religious experiences that help them get in touch with their spiritual selves through quiet reflection, time in nature, private prayer, yoga, or meditation. Many people identify as spiritual but not religious. With a few exceptions, the percentage of adults who identify as religious in many industrialized countries is declining while remaining generally high in less developed nations. Even as religious affirmation or affiliation decreases, though, a sense of spiritual identification could remain steady or even increase. All right. I just thought that that was interesting that industrialized countries are seeing a decline in participation of organized religion. And I'm gonna keep moving on. I'm gonna read something again the benefits of a spiritual life. Now, no direct causal link has been established, but research has consistently found that religious involvement is correlated with better physical and mental health, including better sleep, lower blood pressure, and an overall rate of and a lower lower rate of mortality. Higher levels of spirituality have also been linked to increased compassion, strengthened relationships, and improved self-esteem. Now, those are all good things. And in part, part of what drove me back to my own involvement with organized religion. But I'll touch on more of that in a little bit. Now there may also be downside for people who avoid religion and spirituality altogether. Some research has indicated that eschewing magical thinking and being unable to identify patterns in the surrounding world may be linked to depression or anhedonia. The inability to inex to experience pleasure. Now, is religion good for you? I mean that that was one of the questions posed in this article. And right. As we're going into a school zone for Christ's sake. Passed the car behind me, past me. Everybody's in a rush to get nowhere fast. So is religion, is spirituality good for you? Now, it's correlated with less smoking and drinking and the enhanced ability to cope with stress, increased social support, and there's also a couple negative things that can be associated with increased spiritual or religious activities. And that could perhaps be increased levels of guilt and shame in stricter communities. Now are spiritual people more generous? Yeah. Maybe one could make the argument for that. Studies show that people who are or consider themselves spiritual are less materialistic, more empathetic, and more generous. And studies also show multi-generational studies at that show correlation to a lower prevalence of depression. And studies also indicate that there are changes in the brain, such as increased serotonin levels and decreased thinning of the cerebral cortex. Now, all of these make a good argument for doing work personally to grow in your own way spiritually, whether that is through participation in organized religion or otherwise. Now, one of the things that's often associated with spirituality is the search for meaning. And this is talked about in the article, and again, because this particular section is so good, I am going to read it. An instinct towards spirituality appears to be deeply ingrained in humans. We can't help but ask big questions. Research finds that even declared religious skeptics can't stifle a sense that there is something greater than the physical world they see. As the brain processes sensory experiences, it naturally looks for patterns, and our conscious selves often seek meaning in those patterns. This can lead to the phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance, which describes how once one believes in something, one is strongly inclined to try and explain away anything that conflicts with it. Cognitive dissonance is not unique to region or spirituality, but often occurs in the context of such beliefs. Now, cognitive dissonance is something that is challenging for so many people, including myself at times, but it's challenging for so many people because we are simply not aware of all of that, which we believe. And I think that it's important to understand and remember one thing as we go through this life, and that is that it is important to remember to not believe what we think. So as far as the search for the meaning of life, and I am in a unique position right now as I'm heading into town because I am behind a school bus, a couple cars behind a school bus that is behind a garbage truck. And it's highly unlikely that this garbage or this school bus is going to pass this garbage truck. So we may have a few minutes, and the line of traffic is uh is quite long, and people I'm sure are losing their mind. And uh it's one of these reasons, and this is one of the reasons, on a little side note before I get back to expanding on my own search for meaning in life. But the experience of sitting in traffic right now, heading into town to go to church, to sign these checks, is reminiscent of my experiences back in the corporate world. And I'm just going to refer to the corporate world as working under the employee for someone else. And I spent a lot of time behind the wheel driving to different cities for time in the field with my teams, time in meetings with clients, you know, time doing all sorts of things. And I don't miss this. I feel like I have been in the process of actively creating a life that involved taking steps to get away from things just like this. And looking back here now in 2021, I realized that taking active steps and changing your life takes time. And there is something, there is a key here in this life change that can accelerate that time. And I think it's only one thing. We can take in all kinds of information. I mean, for God's sake, we live in a day and age where we are exposed to and have access to more information than at any other time in history. Yet at the same time, we're also more distracted than we ever have been in history, and perhaps the most unproductive that we ever have been in history. But the key to success and the key to accelerating what we're learning. And the the lifestyle that we want to live through what we're learning is consistency. That's the key. Consistency. We have to keep showing up. We have to do the things we're learning day after day after day. And there we go, the school bus has finally decided to pass the garbage truck. We are moving forward, my friends. Success! Oh dear. So, consistency is the key. You must, in order to continue making progress, you must be consistent with what you execute upon, and you must show up every day consistently. The things that are on your mind must always be present in your thoughts and action. Otherwise, you will go nowhere fast, and quite frankly, you may begin to go backwards. So that is why I'm such a big fan of The Strangest Secret in the World by Earl Nightingale and the 30-day tests that he talks about within. Check out past episodes of the podcast for more on that. I've talked about more on that, but more on the search for meaning. That is something that I have actively been working on and working towards, and much of what I'm doing right now at this stage in this epoch of my life, is doing exactly that. And some of it I'm documenting in the form of this podcast right here and right now. So one of the big questions that's on my mind right now is who am I and what am I doing here? And the way in which I'm going about answering that question is participating in an Eagle's Nest community, which is basically a small breakout group that is made up of people who are engaged in the 48 days community, largely centered around the work and book, 48 Days to the Work and Life You Love by Dan Miller. And the topic of this breakout group specifically is that question: who am I and what am I doing here? So when we had the opportunity to sign up for one of eight or ten breakout groups, since it's a slow time of year for me in the wintertime and there's just not a lot going on, I do have the ability to break out and clock out at the day job and take advantage of participating in some Zoom calls with people like this that are talking about topics such as this. And I think that it's important to do that and to surround yourself with people who are asking themselves the same question. And in this group, there's probably about a dozen of us. So every week for the month of January, for the month of February, rather, I am surrounded by people who are actively asking themselves and then taking action to answer the question of who am I and what am I doing here? And that's an important question to ask. And one exercise that we did, as I start to wrap this up, as I get closer to church, one exercise that we did last week or were suggested to do was something called a disc profile. And this is kind of like an Aneogram test or like the Myers-Briggs test. And in years past, in other lifetimes, I have gone through these and taken these tests extensively when I found myself approaching what seemed to be like a point of burnout. And initially I I approached them because I really was interested in the ideas of personal growth and development and how that could contribute to and help me succeed in the corporate world. And I'm finding that many of those questions are resurfacing again now as I try to find and search for meaning in life in all of the various ways in which I'm doing it. And by engaging in this group and engaging in this breakout group called an eagle's nest, I am lifting myself up by surrounding myself with greatness. And I think that that is a very important thing to do as we all go through life walking each other home. There are a couple more topics in that article about why do people believe in God and do spiritual experiences affect them, but I can't get into that now because I have arrived here at church. But I would encourage you to check that article out for yourself by going to the show notes and following the link contained within. And also, once you're in the show notes, at the very bottom you will see a link in all capital letters that says click here to rate and review the podcast. And I would encourage you to do that if you like what you heard, and that's a great way to support the show because what that does is it is a link that'll take you to Apple Podcasts, and right now that is the podcast player where we are experiencing the most number of plays, and the algorithms that are affected there will be the most helpful. Last but not least, if you do like the show and you want to participate further with us, you can find us all around the group.