Continued from page 1...
The ideas and premises on page 1 are intellectual and abstract. You may be
wondering...
So What?
Intentionally nourishing your personal and family spirituality has at least
five
benefits:
-
controlling (vs. "curing") any addictions,
and...
-
reducing underlying psychological
wounds; and...
-
strengthening your
primary relationship as the core of your family;
and...
-
promoting healthy grieving of major losses
(broken bonds); and most of all,...
-
intentionally
protecting descendents from the lethal [wounds + unawareness cycle
and reducing the cycle's impact on society.
Let's
look at each of these briefly...
Controlling Addictions
An
is an unconscious attempt to mute or distract from intolerable
From 32 years' clinical research, I propose that such pain
always comes from too little nurturance in early childhood. I
also propose that most personal,
family, and social problems - including epidemic
are symptoms of an unseen [wounds + awareness]
that is relentlessly
crippling our families and society.
Since the founding of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
in 1935,
global reports consistently attest that faith in
a benign (vs. vengeful) Higher Power is essential for lasting sobriety.
Participants in the many offshoots of AA continually testify to the same
conclusion. It's also significant that attempts to apply the 12 AA steps
without spiritual faith (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous for Atheists and Agnostics -
AAAA) have relatively few members and chapters.
My
clinical and personal experience since 1981 strongly suggests that
admitting and managing ad-dictions
(preliminary wound-recovery) is essential before permanently reducing toxic
false-self
(full recovery). Prevailing lay and clinical thought often
stops short of this, focusing only on "addiction re-covery" (sobriety) and
ignoring the
and resulting
wounds, and inner pain that promote addictions.
Bottom line:
motivation to
evolve a genuine spiritual faith and turn over control of one's life to a
be-nign, responsive
Supreme Being seems to be essential for successful management of any toxic
compulsion. Paradoxically, such motivation depends on reducing
false-self
and
the resident true Self to guide other subselves in all situations.
For more perspective on addictions and addiction management,
see this series of
articles.
Another major benefit to valuing, evolving, and living by personal spirituality is
in...
Reducing Psychological
Wounds
A central premise in this nonprofit Web site is that typical
of low childhood nurturance develop a system of interactive
which
promote up to six significant psychological
Lesson 1 in the site is devoted to explaining this premise, and
for and
these wounds.
I have been proactively reducing my own wounds since 1987, and have worked
clinically with hundreds of people wanting to reduce theirs since then. My
consistent experience is that firm faith in a benign, responsive Higher
Power is essential for meaningful wound reduction. Many of us
survivors lacked such faith from childhood.
We needed to hit
- usually in mid-life - to dissolve protective old
accept our powerlessness, and seek recovery help from a caring, reliable
Supreme Being and other people. I have rarely met or heard of people in
successful wound-recovery who had no significant spiritual faith.
Most primary personal-health and
relationship problems stem from these pervasive wounds, and significant
of them and some key topics.
Would you agree that
adults
recovering from psychological wounds get more effective support from other
recoverers? That suggests that if any of your family members are trying to recover from
psychological wounds, their odds rise if they
develop nourishing spirituality together. That may or may not manifest
as shared religious beliefs and practices.
For more perspective on these vital concepts, see (a) this
introduction to
Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) and
wound-recovery and (b) these Lesson-1
articles and resources.
The third practical benefit from wanting personal spiritual growth is
to...
Strengthen Your Primary
Relationship and Family Unity
Many people believe that family
health and security are directly proportional to the health of couples'
primary relationships. Do you agree? If you are
or were in a committed relationship, how has personal spirituality affected
it over time?
What would your partner say? Mate's and
relatives' spiritual beliefs can strengthen marital resilience and
commitments a little or a lot.
The opposite effect occurs when mate's spiritual beliefs and practices differ radically, causing
stressful
and family
and relationship
Typical mates guided by their true Selves can discuss and accept major spiritual
and
religious differences peacefully, without trying to
"convert" their partner.
Pause and reflect on your definition of family unity (bonding and loyalty),
and what factors promote it. Then reflect on your definition of the opposite
of family unity. Can you think of examples on both ends of the "unity"
spectrum? Where would you place your own family on that scale? In your
experience, how significant would you say shared spiritual beliefs are in
promoting family harmony and unity?
As
you reflect on this, recall the difference between religious
beliefs and practices, and underlying spiritual faith. Also recall
the difference between toxic
spirituality, which promotes bigotry, anxiety, guilt, conflict,
aggression, and shame; and
nourishing spirituality, which promotes fellowship, compassion,
empathy, love, acceptance, and harmony. Implication -
shared
spiritual faith may or may not improve a marriage's and/or family's
wholistic health and
Enhance Personal and Family
Mourning
Recall
the last major loss your family endured. Is nourishing (vs. toxic)
spirituality part of your family's
Nourishing spirituality
can help kids and adults
their
(broken bonds) thruout their lives.
For
some people, believing that major losses are part of a Supreme
Being's unknowable plan can foster acceptance, if not comfort.
People of faith also may need to
progress through the
spiritual phases of
their grief for full loss-acceptance - i.e. losing and regaining faith in
a caring God despite what appears to be senseless or cruel losses and
tragedies.
Venting to an attentive Higher Power (and other people), and/or asking for
Divine help to endure or heal major pain, can be a major support in
times of personal and family loss. Praying is one form of this
support.
An
important element of personal spiritual faith is an attitude about
the effectiveness of prayer. Attitudes range from "Prayer always
works (fills local needs)" to "prayer works sometimes, for some people" to
"prayer never works for me." Where do you stand on this spectrum?
Where do other key people in your life stand? Has your attitude about prayer
shifted since you were a child?
One requisite for healthy grief is the "loser" describing each major loss
and it's real or probable effects, over and over again ("venting") until stable
acceptance. Whether people are available to listen empathically and
patiently to these repetitions or not, being able to describe them to an
attentive, caring Spirit Guide, Higher Self, Guardian Angel, and/or higher
Power can provide real relief.
Tho not scientifically proven and widely accepted, recent studies seem to
suggest that personal and group prayer and underlying spiritual faith can help
to halt, reduce, or heal psychological and bodily afflictions. Positive
effects seem more likely among those expecting prayer to work than among
skeptics. This may vary with the way people
interpret perceived results from praying.
A
final way personal spirituality can be a major benefit is...
Breaking and/or Preventing
the [Wounds + Unawareness] Cycle
My clinical work since 1979 and my personal healing experience strongly
suggest an epidemic, toxic bequest of [psychological wounds + unawareness ]
the generations in typical
Once understood and looked for, evidence of
this cycle and its
is compelling - and our wounded society currently needs to
Two of many symptoms are the global AIDS epidemic, and our current
resistance to accepting the inexorable degradation of our global
environment.
Once people...
-
learn and evaluate the concepts of family
nurturance levels, personality subselves, psychological wounds, and
wound-reduction, and...
-
hit true (vs. pseudo) personal
and...
-
commit to
their true Self to
and harmonize their inner team, they can...
-
break this toxic cycle in their families,
communities, and society.
As suggested above,
their
ability to do these depends partly on their cultivating nourishing personal
and family spiritual beliefs and practices. For more perspective, see
this series of Web articles.
We just reviewed five practical benefits to intentionally seeking personal
spiritual faith and growth. How do you feel about them in the context of
your life and family? Who's answering that question - your
or
Status Check
Where do each of your family's adults stand now on spirituality vs.
religion? Use
T(rue), F(alse), and "?" again
to decide. Notice how you feel as you answer these...
1) I'm comfortable
enough now with (a) my attitude about my personal spirituality and (b) the
priority I give it in my life. I don't need to change anything now. (T F
?)
2) I believe that my current spiritual attitudes and practices are
consistently nourishing, vs. toxic - to me and those I care about.
(T F ?)
3) We
family adults have an effective way of resolving major
among us about spiritual and religious beliefs, priorities,
and practices now. (T
F ?)
4) I'm comfortable
enough now with what our family adults are modeling and teaching our young people about...
what spirituality
is and
isn't, how spirituality differs from religion, and why that
difference is important for wholistic health; (T F ?)
the validity of
in our kids and adults - and everyone else;
(T F ?)
what "spiritual
growth" is, and what affects it; (T F ?)
how to distinguish
nourishing spirituality from
toxic beliefs and
practices,
(T F ?)
how to regard and
use Holy Books (scriptures) in a healthy way; (T F ?)
how to develop and benefit from their own
spirituality, (T F ?)
how to identify and respond to
spiritual and religious abuse, aggression, and bigotry; (T F
?) and...
how to react to
conflicting spiritual and religious beliefs and practices
(values and loyalty conflicts and associated relationship triangles),
(T F ?)
5) We adults have been thoughtful and clear about
making
nourishing spirituality a mean-ingful part of our
(a) family
and (b)
parental
and (c)
we're consistently acting on those often enough; or I
know why we haven't, and am aware of my action-options now. (T F ?)
6) Our family
adults
(a) consistently help each other to
the primary needs
promo-ting our surface "problems," and
(b) we include
among our kids' and adults'
(T F ?)
7) Our adults
are (a) aware of our family's
and (b)
all our adults inten-tionally include growing and sharing nourishing
spirituality as a significant contributor to our mutual nurturance. (T F
?)
8) Our adults
are consistently (a) open and (b) motivated to discus spiritual and
religious topics
and (c) we all encourage our children to
participate and question with us. (T F ?)
9)
I'm confidant
that each adult
in our family would answer each of these as "True."
(T F ?)
10) On a scale
of -10 (very toxic) to +10 (very nurturing) I would say that
our family's spirituality has been a ___ factor for us all in the last year.
11) My
is
to these items
now. (T F ?)
Pause, breathe, and reflect - what are you aware of now? If you don't
answer all of these as "True" now, note that people change some core beliefs as
our experiences and awareness change. You may
know some "non-spiritual" people who became "believers" in a Higher Power
for various reasons. Each member of your family can shift their spiritual
faith when "the time is right."
Overall,
can you describe a family
"spirituality policy" that consistently promotes a high nurtur-ance-level
and wholistic health and growth among your
adults and kids now?
Recap
A consistent theme
in all human cultures and ages has been the need of
average people to develop and express their spirituality -
an awareness of, and reverent interaction with, the unknowable aspects of Nature
and the universe.
This non-profit, non-sectarian Web site proposes that personal and family
spirituality, vs. religion, are essential ingredients in
forging (a) effective
from
addictions and psychological wounds and (b)
high-nurturance marriages and families.
Another premise is that personal and family
spirituality ranges over time between nourishing (promoting
and growth) and toxic (hindering those).
This article
invites your family adults'
awareness and discussion of...
-
what spirituality
and religion are, and how they differ;
-
what spiritual
needs, neglect,
abuse, and addiction are; and...
-
how your individual and collective spirituality can help or
hinder the evolution of high-nurturance relationships, and prevent outcomes like
these in and among your
relatives' homes.
If your
family members are troubled by significant
over
religion now, see this
article for perspective and
options. If you're conflicted over other prejudices, see
this.
For
more perspective, read these articles on toxic and nurturing
spiritual / religious beliefs, and how
clergy and church officials can prevent
family stress, wounds, and (re)divorce. Also experience this
thought-provoking "Interview
With God."
Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get
what you needed? If not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your
or
